Problem with CERT in Alexa Flash Briefings

Hi guys,

Sorry but im trying to get a flash briefing skill to work, i have successfully enabled SSL using LetsEnctypt and can access my HASS setup from outside my network over SSL. I have a custom Alexa Intent working fine however following the instructions for the flash briefing i get an error on the amazon developer page:

Error: Error fetching the requested URL.

My URL is: https://MYURL.MYDOMAIN.COM/api/alexa/flash_briefings/FLASH_ID?api_password=API_PASSWORD

I found this page, so installed nginx on my Pi. I have added the code in post 4 to my nginx.conf under the http section (/etc/nginx/nginx.conf). Restarted the nginx service but still cant get the skill page to accept the URL.

If i try HTTP rather than HTTPS i get an 4xx error. For reference i can access the JSON of the briefing via Chrome Address bar.

Any help appreciated.

Same problem as eximo84 here. Even forcing it to use http over https, it changes from “feed not found” to “4xx” error. So dumb that Alexa cannot work with Letsencrypt!

I’m using Alexa with Let’s Encrypt. I have a DDNS name setup with No-IP.org, and I set up SSL with Let’s Encrypt.

I forward all SSL traffic to the Pi to port 8123. So when I hit up my domain, it’s:

https://mydomain.no-ip.org

Notice, no port specified. Alexa won’t work with a port specification; the end point has to be a simple SSL URL - https:// and your domain. That’s it. Otherwise it fails.

There are a few ways around this, but they involve reverse proxies and/or NGINX or some other method that is way above me. You can search the threads on that, but this method has worked for me since day one so I’m sticking to it.

I am using a reverse Nginx proxy, so also no port specified in the Alexa flash briefing configuration. No idea why it wont work for me then.

Do the Flash Briefings working for you?

I’m not using them through HA and I apologize for responding to @liquidox’s post - I saw “Let’s Encrypt doesn’t work with Alexa” and didn’t pay attention to the context of the thread. As a mod, I run through a lot of threads during the day, but I should have paid more attention to the context.

Sorry if I misled anyone.

Also have the same issue with Flash Briefing, tried on both a Win 7 and Pi B+ install of HA, all using let’s encrypt, and using no port in the URL (incoming port 443 forwarded to HA:8123 in router).

SSL works perfectly with everything else (I’m using same cert etc. for a grafana install too) and regular HA install, just the flash briefing doesn’t work. I haven’t tried any custom intents yet.

I have exactly the same problem…

@jumpkick Do you use secure connection for HA ? I can’t this to work, I also have apache server running on the same machine, but I get proxy error :

Proxy Error

The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.
The proxy server could not handle the request GET 
/api/alexa/flash_briefings/query_id.

Reason: Error reading from remote server

Apache/2.4.18 (Ubuntu) Server at <server> Port 5055 

This happens when I’m trying to access :
http://<server>:5055/api/alexa/flash_briefings/query_id?api_password=pass

My HA accessible via
https://<server>:8123

OK I’ve managed to do it
Here is the complete configuration :

<VirtualHost _default_:5055>
   ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
   CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
   ProxyPreserveHost On
   ProxyRequests Off
   SSLProxyEngine On
   ServerName <server>
   ProxyPass /api/alexa/ https://<server>:8123/api/alexa/
   ProxyPassReverse /api/alexa/ https://<server>:8123/api/alexa/
</VirtualHost>

Oh damn, I guess Amazon accepts only https:// requests now, so it was all was for nothing.

Just to share with everyone that I manage to setup flash briefing without SSL. No NGINX nor SSL installation is required. Just set port forwarding (80 to 8123) with proper DDNS setup.

Can you share your sample url? Thank you