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Connecting MAX

MAX is connected the same way as Telegram: you paste the bot token from MAX for Business in the “Channels” section, and CHBT subscribes to the bot’s events itself. You don’t need your own server or manual webhook setup. Below: the steps, testing from your phone, and what to do if the channel shows the “Error” status.

Step 1. Get a bot token in MAX for Business

Open the MAX for Business dashboard — business.max.ru — and create a bot or select an existing one.
Copy the bot's token in full.

That's all you need from MAX: CHBT passes the platform the address for sending messages on its own. The token gives access to the bot — keep it like a password and don't forward it in chats. In the CHBT dashboard, the token isn't shown anywhere after connecting. If you already have a bot in MAX, you don't need to create a new one — its token will work.

Step 2. Paste the token in “Channels”

In the app.chbt.io dashboard, open your bot → the “Channels” section → in the “Connect a new channel” block, click “Connect” on the MAX card.
Optionally, fill in “Channel name” for your own reference, paste the token into the “Token” field and click “Connect MAX”.
CHBT requests the bot’s details from MAX using this token (the /me method), then creates a subscription (POST /subscriptions): it gives MAX an address like https://app.chbt.io/webhook/max/<channel ID>, where the platform will send the bot’s events. There is no field for this address in the dashboard.

After that, the dashboard opens the bot’s “Overview”: a MAX row with a status appears in the “Channels” card. If you left the name empty and the connection succeeded, the row is labeled with the bot’s MAX username, or with the bot’s name if it has no username. “Working” means MAX accepted the token and the subscription, and you can move on to testing. “Error” means the reason is shown under the status:

“Invalid MAX token or API unavailable.” MAX didn’t return the bot’s details for this token: the token was copied incompletely, has already been replaced in your MAX account, or MAX didn’t respond at that moment. Copy the token again and connect MAX once more, then delete the row with the error in “Channels”: “⋯” button → “Delete”. It has no messages — the bot never worked through it.
Other text. MAX accepted the token, but the subscription failed: the status shows the MAX response or a network error message. Open “Channels” and click “Reinstall webhook” in the channel row.

Channels can be connected by the bot owner and admins; the “Operator” role doesn’t have the connection block.

Step 3. Test from your phone

Open “Flows”: the card of the flow you need should show the “Enabled” badge, not “Draft”. You turn a flow on with the toggle on its card or in the flow list on “Overview”.
Open the flow in the editor and check the triggers: “Command (/start)” for the “Start” button, and “Any message” or “Keywords” for regular text.
Open the bot in MAX on your phone and tap “Start”. MAX sends this as a bot start event, and CHBT handles it as the /start command. Then send any text.
In the dashboard, open “Conversations”: a conversation with the MAX channel appears there, with your messages and the bot's replies.

If your messages are in “Conversations” but the bot's reply isn't, the connection is fine and the issue is in the flow. If the reply is there but marked “not delivered”, sending to MAX failed: hover over the label, and the tooltip shows the error text. If the bot replied “We can't reply in this chat right now” and your message isn't in “Conversations”, the connection is also fine: on the Free plan, 30 different contacts have already messaged the bot since the 1st of the month, and the bot replies to new ones only with this phrase. To the bot, your MAX account is a contact just like a customer, and it counts toward these 30 too. If there's neither a message nor a reply, go back to the channel status. The “Check flow” button in the editor helps you separate the flow from the connection: the test chat works without MAX and doesn't count toward the limit.

Channel status, “Reinstall webhook”, and a new token

CHBT doesn't run a separate background check of the channel: a MAX channel's status changes only in response to events. “Working” is set when MAX accepts the token and the subscription on connection or after “Reinstall webhook”, and when a message is successfully sent on behalf of the bot. “Error” is set when connecting or reinstalling fails, and when MAX rejects the token (a 401 response) while sending a bot reply, an operator message, or a broadcast. Incoming messages don't change a MAX channel's status, so “Working” reflects the outcome of the last such event, not a check made “right now”.

The “Reinstall webhook” button is in the channel row in the “Channels” section. For MAX, it repeats what CHBT does on connection: using the token saved in the channel, it requests the bot's details and re-creates the subscription to the channel's address. It doesn't change the token. Click it if the status is “Error” with a message that isn't about the token and the token is definitely valid, or if the status is “Working” but messages from your phone don't appear in “Conversations” and the bot doesn't reply, not even with the limit message.

If MAX rejected the token while sending, the channel row switches to “Error” with the text “bot token rejected (401 Unauthorized)”, and the bot's owner and admins receive an email “Your bot … needs attention”: no more than once a day, and only if “Email notifications” or the “Bot status” item isn't turned off in “Notifications”. “Reinstall webhook” won't help here: the button works with the old token, and the channel has no field for a new one. Connect MAX again with the current token and wait for the new row to show “Working”. You can delete the old row (“⋯” button → “Delete”): the conversations that went through it will remain in “Conversations” as read-only. Contacts with their tags and fields will stay too. You can no longer reply in those conversations — when the customer writes again, the conversation will continue through the new row.

The full checklist of reasons a MAX bot is silent is in the help article “MAX bot is silent”.

Channel specifics to know up front

The bot in MAX sends text and two kinds of buttons: go to a flow branch and open a link. Buttons appear below the message, one per row, as in Telegram. “Quick replies” from the “Message” block aren't shown in MAX. CHBT doesn't send photos, videos or files in MAX, so share materials as links.
The client starts the conversation: a MAX contact appears in CHBT when the person taps “Start” or messages the bot.
Tagged links: if the bot was opened via a link with a parameter, MAX passes it in the start event, and the “Deeplink” trigger catches it. Create a separate flow for the tag and use the “Add a tag” action in it to mark the source (“website”, “flyer”). Check the format of such links in the MAX for Business documentation: CHBT “QR campaigns” currently build tagged links only for Telegram.
One flow works in MAX, Telegram and VK alike — if you already have a bot in another messenger, there's nothing to rebuild: one flow for two messengers. On the Free plan, a person who has messaged the bot in both Telegram and MAX counts as two contacts out of 30.

Channel features are on the MAX bot page; the path from scratch to your first flow is in the article how to create a bot in MAX. MAX is included in the Free plan — sign up and connect your bot.

FAQ

Do I need to enter the webhook address in my MAX account?
No. When you click “Connect MAX”, CHBT itself subscribes to the bot’s events using its channel address. If the status is “Working”, but messages don’t reach “Conversations” and the bot doesn’t even reply with the limit message, click “Reinstall webhook” in the channel row — the subscription will be created again.

The bot replies to “Start” but ignores text. Why?
The “Start” button fires the “Command (/start)” trigger, while regular text needs the “Any message” or “Keywords” trigger. Add one of them to the flow.

I changed my MAX bot's token. What do I do in CHBT?
Connect MAX again in “Channels” with the new token: a connected channel has no token field, and “Reinstall webhook” works with the old one. You can delete the old channel row: its conversations will remain in “Conversations” as read-only, and its contacts in “Contacts”.

Can I connect MAX to a bot that already works in Telegram?
Yes, in the same CHBT bot: “Channels” → the MAX card → “Connect.” The flow is shared, and messages from both messengers are in the same “Conversations.” On the Free plan, a person who writes in both Telegram and MAX counts as two of the 30 contacts.

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