Question about the meaning of “txack” in Events (downlink confirmed vs only sent)

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Hello ChirpStack support team,

I have a question about how to interpret the “txack” flag/signal shown in Events related to downlinks.

When a downlink is sent and I see txack in the Events, does that mean:

  • the end node actually received the downlink (device-level confirmation), or

  • only that the network server sent the downlink (e.g., queued/emitted to the gateway), with no guarantee the end node received it?

If possible, could you also point out which specific event I should look at to distinguish “sent” vs “received/confirmed by the device,” and whether this depends on using a confirmed downlink and/or Class A/C?

1 Answers

There are two events you might be interested in:

  • txack: This indicates that a queued downlink was sent. There is no guarantee that it was received by the device.
  • ack: In case the downlink was enqueued as confirmed: true, then the ack event indicates that it was acknowledged (or not) by the end-device.