Understanding delivery statuses
Every message you send carries a status that tells you how far it got — from "on its way" to "read by the customer". The Connect Feed shows it as a small icon on the bubble, and the message record stores the exact word. This article is the vocabulary: what each status means per channel, the icons, how long statuses keep updating on screen, and the classic cause when ticks stop moving.
The status icons on the bubble
| Icon | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Clock | Still in progress — accepted by REDA Connect, working through the provider |
| Check mark | The provider accepted it (Sent / Accepted) |
| Success mark | Delivered to the customer's phone |
| Success mark (green) | Read by the customer (WhatsApp only) |
| Red error mark | Failed or Undelivered — the reason is shown inside the bubble |
Click Details under any bubble for the status in words plus the full delivery timeline — Created, Sent, Delivered, Read (or Received for incoming) — showing only the stamps that exist.
WhatsApp statuses
Outbound WhatsApp walks this path:
Sent → Delivered → Read — or Failed.
- Sent — WhatsApp accepted the message.
- Delivered — it reached the customer's phone.
- Read — the customer opened it. (You only get Read when the customer's own WhatsApp privacy settings allow read receipts — no Read status does not prove the message is unread.)
- Failed — WhatsApp rejected it; the reason from WhatsApp is stored on the message and shown in the bubble and the Details panel.
Statuses can arrive out of order from the network; the feed always keeps the furthest stage reached — a message never moves backwards from Read to Delivered.
SMS statuses
Outbound SMS (via Twilio) has a longer vocabulary:
Queued / Accepted / Sending → Sent → Delivered — or Undelivered / Failed.
- Queued, Accepted, Sending — stages inside Twilio before the message goes to the carrier. Seeing Queued right after sending is normal.
- Sent — handed to the carrier.
- Delivered — the carrier confirmed delivery to the handset.
- Undelivered — the carrier could not deliver it (unreachable number, filtering, roaming issues). Treated like a failure: red mark, reason on the message.
- Failed — rejected before or at the provider; reason on the message.
There is no Read status on SMS — carriers don't report it.
Incoming messages
Incoming messages carry the status Received. They show the responded indicator instead of delivery ticks — see Receiving and replying.
How long statuses keep updating
Delivery receipts arrive from the provider over hours or days, and the message record is updated whenever they land. The feed, while open, keeps live-refreshing the ticks on recent messages — with sensible cutoffs:
- WhatsApp: a message's ticks keep refreshing until it is Read, for up to 5 days.
- SMS: until Delivered, for up to about 30 minutes after sending.
After the cutoff the feed stops watching that message, but nothing is lost — a late receipt still updates the message record, and you'll see the final status next time the conversation loads or you click Refresh.
When ticks stop moving — the classic cause
If every SMS sticks at Sent and never shows Delivered, the usual culprit is the status callback address: it must end with a trailing slash, and one saved without it means Twilio's delivery receipts are never recognised. The fix is a one-field correction — see Connecting the Twilio webhooks. Delivery receipts (both channels) also depend on the public Site being in place — see Creating the public Site for incoming messages.
| Symptom | Likely cause | Where to fix |
|---|---|---|
| All SMS stuck at Sent forever | Status callback URL missing its trailing slash | Connecting the Twilio webhooks |
| No statuses ever progress, either channel | Public Site missing or misconfigured | Creating the public Site |
| One message shows Failed | Provider rejected that message | Read the reason in the bubble / Details, then A message isn't sending |
| WhatsApp Delivered but never Read | Customer's read receipts are off, or they haven't opened it | Nothing to fix — Read is best-effort |
FAQ
No — Delivered means it reached the phone. Only Read (WhatsApp, receipts permitting) indicates it was opened.
No — Queued is the normal first stop inside Twilio. It typically moves to Sent and Delivered within seconds to minutes.
In the bubble itself for a failed message, and in the message's Details panel. The reason is stored on the message record, so it's also reportable — see Reports and dashboards.
No. Receipts update the message record whenever they arrive; the feed shows the current status whenever it next loads that conversation.
Where to go next
- A message isn't sending — working a Failed message.
- Connecting the Twilio webhooks — the trailing-slash fix.
- Receiving and replying — the incoming side's indicator.