[HowTo] Setting up a Telegram Bot for all your Home Automation messages

Flight777 · November 4, 2019, 1:31pm

Hi all,

Running into some (probably basic) issues with the Node-Red Chatbot nodes, on Hassio in Docker (installed node-red via the HassIO add-ons):

I can connect to Telegram and send simple text messages, however, two Nodes I’m not able to configure.

First of the Conversation Node, I’m not able to select any Transporter (should be “Telegram” if I’m correct) nor I’m able to select the bot configurations…(while this works in the output node):

Second is the Image Node which does not seem to do anything? I’ve put in a URL to a image, entered a caption and connected it to the sender node, but nothing happens. The Debug also doesn’t show any output (earlier on in the flow it does show output):

Anybody has any idea what could be wrong, are they known bugs or is there something wrong with my installation?

Thanks!

0rn0lf · November 4, 2019, 6:46pm

Same here, after the latest update a lot of my flows arent working anymore because “transport” is missing. But theres nothing to choose. Its just empty. I know that i could use a function node but than i wouldnt need the conversation node anymore.

@Flight777
I dont think you need a bot configuration. Its already configured in the the sending node.

dawess · November 5, 2019, 8:32am

Hi Flight - I have just registered for you in this forum to answer you! I have the same issue and to me there are multiple bugs in this release of red-node. but I have a workaround for you. if you check the description and the options of this node you can find an info where it says that you can pass the parameters via a function node parameters needed are chatid and the transport … in my case it was telegram… see screenshot:

Domoticon · November 5, 2019, 4:10pm

Welcome to the forum! Your feedback is highly appreciated!

Flight777 · November 9, 2019, 10:07am

Thanks all for your support!

I’ve did some more troubleshooting and it definitely has something do to with the Node-Red Hassio add-on. Now running a separate NodeRed instance in docker and all my problems disappeared…

So for now the best way is to run NodeRed not via the add-on but on it’s own, connecting to HA is very easy

Malaga82 · November 13, 2019, 9:31am

latest telegram bot node-red-contrib-chatbot 0.17.5 has issues with HA ( it’s not working ).
I suggest, until fixed and you if updated by mistake, to try node-red-contrib-telegrambot-home that is working fine with HA.
it needs to reconfigure every telegram node but at least telegram will work again.

PickleSlice · November 13, 2019, 2:29pm

Yeah, don’t update. I’ve had to resort to using call-service nodes and the telegram_bot service to send notifications for the time being.

atm354 · November 20, 2019, 9:32pm

Yes, I can’t select the transport and Bot Configuration in the Conversation node! Drop-down lists are empty! node-red-contrib-chatbot ver. 0.17.8. Node-Red installed in hassio in the Community Hass.io Add-ons Node-RED addon

Malaga82 · November 20, 2019, 9:52pm

That’s the issue, not fixed as of now. Hope it will, but for now use the other telegram bot, for me it’s working fine at least.

henry8866 · November 20, 2019, 11:17pm

I’m on 0.17.8, sender and receiver seems working fine. didn’t try other nodes yet.

atm354 · November 21, 2019, 6:24pm

Thats right for “clean” Node-Red instal, not for Docker with Hassio

Jeremy_S · March 28, 2020, 10:58pm

Thanks for this guide, it was super helpful. I have it working for the most part except I cannot get the log file to work for the life of me. I have the file located in /www/telegram/telegram.log and I have tried using /local/telegram/telegram.log and even /shared/ and /config/ but none of them seem to work.

Also I’m unable to send something to two different users using the same bot. I added both user id’s separated with a comma to the config but only my phone gets the message. Anyone have this working?

bv101 · April 5, 2020, 4:39pm

Same question here, cant get the logfile working.
And some google-fu is not helping

Jeremy_S · April 6, 2020, 3:09am

I figured out the location for the log file. I have /config/www/telegram/telegram.log and that works fine for me. You just need to create the file first and point the node to the correct location. I wish the documentation was a little more clear.

ne0ark · June 24, 2020, 12:30am

Whenever I open Edit Button node I am getting a pop up:

Also not of my buttons are saving for some reason.

dawess · August 24, 2020, 11:02am

Hi ne0ark,

do you still need help?
How does your “nodered addon” configuration part look like?
please remove secrets

Codec303 · August 27, 2020, 8:25am

Thanks for this, I’m looking to set a log file up myself, can I ask what OS you are using?

sjmotew · September 12, 2020, 7:42pm

Need some help with what should be relatively simple. I have Telegram bot set-up in Node Red, able to send static message through when triggered, however I am not clear how to pass msg contents (topic and payload) from Node Red flow into the message node for telegram. I think this sits with the need to add a function node or set formatting in the telegram message noe, but need help with formatting to get contents through to telegram.

Thanks in advance.

sender · September 12, 2020, 8:16pm

Can you give an example of what you want to send? I have some running and might be able to help.

sjmotew · September 12, 2020, 10:30pm

Thanks. I have a location entity state (from iOS app) sent from HA into Node Red and Node Red picks this up and parses a locale based on some processing that winds up completing with a msg.payload:

{"topic":"Location Alert","payload":"Joe is at work.","data":{"entity_id":"device_tracker.xxxxx","old_state":{"entity_id":"device_tracker.xxxx","state":"work","attributes":....}

I want to just send the message payload “Joe is at work” through to Telegram through the Telegram_Sender node. I can set up a separate “Text” message node for each different payload, however would rather just send the payload from one of many through a single flow if that makes sense?