The present invention provides a response message processing method, apparatus, and system, and relates to the communications field. The method includes: sending, according to a device identifier sent by a request device, a query request to a destination device corresponding to the device identifier, so that the destination device returns a response message according to the query request; generating substitution data when an error occurs in the response message, where the substitution data is associated with resource data requested by the query request and is used to substitute for the resource data requested by the query request; and sending response substitution information to the request device, where the response substitution information includes the substitution data and the device identifier.