Telegram error 400: Bad Request: message can't be edited

An editMessageText, editMessageCaption, editMessageMedia or editMessageReplyMarkup call targeted a message the bot is not permitted to change. Bots may only edit messages they sent themselves (or inline messages they produced via inline_message_id); they cannot edit a user's message, a forwarded copy, or most service messages. The Bot API also documents that business messages not sent by the bot and without an inline keyboard can only be edited within 48 hours of being sent.

This is different from message to edit not found, which means the ID does not resolve, and from message is not modified, which means the edit was a no-op. Here the message was found and the content differed; Telegram simply will not let this bot change it.

Poll messages are another case: once a poll is sent its question and options cannot be edited, only stopped with stopPoll. Channel posts add a rights dimension: editing a post in a channel requires the bot to be an administrator with can_edit_messages, and losing that right turns previously working edits into this error overnight.

python-telegram-bot raises telegram.error.BadRequest and aiogram v3 raises TelegramBadRequest with this description; there is no dedicated exception class, so match on the description string. The most common real-world trigger in all stacks is the same: a handler that stores the wrong message reference (the user's incoming message instead of the bot's own reply) and later tries to edit it. Verify from.id on the stored message equals your bot's own ID from getMe.

{"ok":false,"error_code":400,"description":"Bad Request: message can't be edited"}

Only store message IDs for editing when the message came from your own send call. Avoid 'edit the user's message' designs entirely; they are impossible in the Bot API. In channels, check admin rights at setup rather than at the moment of the first edit. The documented edit windows and content-type constraints are collected under editing and deleting limits.