googleworkspace/cli · error · GwsError

Failed to fetch message: {e}

Error message

Failed to fetch message: {e}

What it means

The transport-level failure branch of `fetch_original_message`: `crate::client::send_with_retry` (which already retries transient errors) ultimately failed while GETting `https://gmail.googleapis.com/gmail/v1/users/me/messages/{id}?format=full`. This is a reqwest error after retries were exhausted — HTTP status errors are handled separately via `build_api_error`.

Source

Thrown at crates/google-workspace-cli/src/helpers/gmail/mod.rs:384

pub(super) async fn fetch_message_metadata(
    client: &reqwest::Client,
    token: &str,
    message_id: &str,
) -> Result<OriginalMessage, GwsError> {
    let url = format!(
        "https://gmail.googleapis.com/gmail/v1/users/me/messages/{}",
        crate::validate::encode_path_segment(message_id)
    );

    let resp = crate::client::send_with_retry(|| {
        client
            .get(&url)
            .bearer_auth(token)
            .query(&[("format", "full")])
    })
    .await
    .map_err(|e| GwsError::Other(anyhow::anyhow!("Failed to fetch message: {e}")))?;

    if !resp.status().is_success() {
        let status = resp.status().as_u16();
        let body = resp
            .text()
            .await
            .unwrap_or_else(|_| "(error body unreadable)".to_string());
        return Err(build_api_error(
            status,
            &body,
            &format!("Failed to fetch message {message_id}"),
        ));
    }

    let msg: Value = resp
        .json()
        .await
        .map_err(|e| GwsError::Other(anyhow::anyhow!("Failed to parse message: {e}")))?;

View on GitHub (pinned to a3768d0e82)

Solutions

1. Confirm reachability: `curl -sS -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' https://gmail.googleapis.com/`.
2. Check proxy env vars (HTTPS_PROXY/ALL_PROXY) — reqwest honors them; exempt or fix googleapis.com.
3. Retry the command once the network is stable; the helper is stateless and safe to re-run.
4. If it persists, enable logging (`GOOGLE_WORKSPACE_CLI_LOG=gws=debug`) to see the underlying reqwest cause.

// Cheap connectivity check before a reply/forward flow that must fetch the message
if std::net::TcpStream::connect("gmail.googleapis.com:443").is_err() {
    eprintln!("gmail.googleapis.com unreachable — check network before replying");
}

// Distinguish transport failure (retry) from API errors (surface):
match fetch_original_message(client, token, id).await {
    Err(GwsError::Other(e)) if e.to_string().starts_with("Failed to fetch message") => retry_with_backoff(id).await,
    Err(e) => return Err(e),
    Ok(m) => m,
}

When it happens

Trigger: No network / DNS failure to gmail.googleapis.com; TLS interception proxy rejecting the request; token present but connection dropped mid-body repeatedly so all retry attempts fail; extremely large message bodies timing out on every attempt.

Common situations: Running `gws gmail +reply`/`+forward` offline or behind a corporate proxy; flaky tethered connections; CI runners with blocked egress to googleapis.com.

Related errors

• Failed to fetch sendAs settings: {e}
• People API request failed: {e}
• Failed to fetch attachment: {e}
• Failed to fetch user profile: {e}
• Pub/Sub pull failed: {e}

AI-assisted analysis of googleworkspace/cli@a3768d0e82 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/0f902436a3912666. Report an issue: GitHub.