Hey there! Let's break down why you're hitting that DiscordAPIError: Cannot send an empty message error and fix it up.

The Root Cause #

Looking at your code, when a user runs the help command without any arguments (i.e., !help), you do two things:

1. You create and send a valid MessageEmbed with all your commands.
2. Then you try to send the data array, which is completely empty at this point.

Discord's API doesn't allow sending empty messages, so that second msg.author.send(data, { split: true }) call is what's triggering the error. You don't need that line at all—your Embed already contains all the command list info!

The Fix #

Here's how to adjust your code to resolve the issue:

1. Remove the redundant msg.author.send(data, { split: true }) line.
2. Wrap your Embed send call in the existing then/catch block so you can handle DM failures properly.
3. (For Discord.js v13+) Update the Embed send syntax to use { embeds: [helpEmbed] } (this is required in newer versions).

Modified Code #

const Discord = require('discord.js');
const { prefix } = require('../config.json');
module.exports = {
  name: 'help',
  description: 'List all of my commands or info about a specific command.',
  aliases: ['commands', 'cmds'],
  usage: '[command name]',
  cooldown: 5,
  execute(msg, args) {
    const data = [];
    const { commands } = msg.client;
    if (!args.length) {
      const helpEmbed = new Discord.MessageEmbed()
        .setColor('YELLOW')
        .setTitle('Here\'s a list of all my commands:')
        .setDescription(commands.map(cmd => cmd.name).join('\n'))
        .setTimestamp()
        .setFooter(`You can send \`${prefix}help [command name]\` to get info on a specific command!`);
      
      // Send the embed directly, and handle success/errors
      return msg.author.send({ embeds: [helpEmbed] }) // Use this syntax for v13+, omit the object for older versions
        .then(() => {
          if (msg.channel.type === 'dm') return;
          msg.reply('I\'ve sent you a DM with all my commands!');
        })
        .catch(error => {
          console.error(`Could not send help DM to ${msg.author.tag}.\n`, error);
          msg.reply('it seems like I can\'t DM you! Do you have DMs disabled?');
        });
    }
    const name = args[0].toLowerCase();
    const command = commands.get(name) || commands.find(c => c.aliases && c.aliases.includes(name));
    if (!command) {
      return msg.reply('that\'s not a valid command!');
    }
    data.push(`**Name:** ${command.name}`);
    if (command.aliases) data.push(`**Aliases:** ${command.aliases.join(', ')}`);
    if (command.description) data.push(`**Description:** ${command.description}`);
    if (command.usage) data.push(`**Usage:** ${prefix}${command.name} ${command.usage}`);
    data.push(`**Cooldown:** ${command.cooldown || 3} second(s)`);
    msg.channel.send(data, { split: true });
  },
};

Key Changes Explained #

• We removed the empty data send call entirely—your Embed is doing all the work here.
• We moved the Embed send into the then/catch flow so if sending the DM fails (e.g., user has DMs disabled), the error handler will trigger correctly.
• For Discord.js v13 and above, we use { embeds: [helpEmbed] } instead of passing the Embed directly—this is the required syntax for newer versions to send embeds. If you're on an older version (v12 or below), you can just pass helpEmbed directly without the object wrapper.

That should eliminate the empty message error while keeping all the functionality of your help command intact!

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者Soulhax