Check discord bot's permissions so it wont crash

Question

Im making a dumb discord bot, but it crashes everytime when he's muted or in timeout. How do i add a send messages permission check?

import discord
import random

TOKEN = "blahblahblah"

client = discord.Client()

@client.event
async def on_ready():
    print("{0.user} is now online!".format(client))

@client.event
async def on_message(message):
    if message.author == client.user:
        return

    if 'blah' in message.content or client.user.mentioned_in(message):
        print(message.author, ":", message.content)
        if random.randint(1,2) == 2:
            await message.channel.send('blah?')
        else:
            await message.channel.send('blah!')
client.run(TOKEN)

When he's in timeout and trying to send a message, python gives me a 403 forbidden error.

All of the solutions i found in the internet were confusing, most of them didn't work

Answer 1

You can catch exceptions like this:

try:
    await message.channel.send("blah")
except discord.Forbidden:
    print("Bot is missing permissions")

I highly recommend using commands.Bot() instead of discord.Client() as it comes with several benefits such as error handling, support for the commands extension, and checks among other things.

https://discordpy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ext/commands/commands.html