The discord.py `on_message` event

Last Updated: May 2, 2023 2:56 PM UTC

Last edited by:

Daniel Gu <[email protected]>

GitHub <[email protected]>

Update on-message-event.md

Registering the on_message event with @bot.event will override the default behavior of the event. This may cause prefix commands to stop working, because they rely on the default on_message event handler.

Instead, use @bot.listen to add a listener. Listeners get added alongside the default on_message handler which allows you to have multiple handlers for the same event. This means prefix commands can still be invoked as usual. Here's an example:

@bot.listen()
async def on_message(message):
    ...  # do stuff here

# Or...

@bot.listen('on_message')
async def message_listener(message):
    ...  # do stuff here

You can also tell discord.py to process the message for commands as usual at the end of the on_message handler with bot.process_commands(). However, this method isn't recommended as it does not allow you to add multiple on_message handlers.

If your prefix commands are still not working, it may be because you haven't enabled the message_content intent. See /tag message_content for more info.