[SOLVED] Newline in Twilio SMS message. (Was: Call-service API error.... extra keys not allowed in Node-Red flow)

Third party integrations Node-RED
1

Total newbie to HA here. I got it installed on the R-Pi last night and managed to get my Schlage Connect z-wave deadbolt talking to HA. I also got node-red and Twilio installed and configured and working.

I’m playing around with node-red flows and created a flow to send a Twilio text message to my phone when the state of the deadbolt changes. The flow looks like:

node-red-1
node-red-11705×207 35 KB

The function node takes the msg payload from the deadbolt state change event and creates a new field, msg.textMessage, with the text that I want to send to my phone. The debug node shows that the text string is what I want it to be.

The Twilio SMS node has the following JSON in the data field:

{ "message": msg.textMessage, "target": "+1<myPhoneNumber>"}

When I do this, I get an error in the node red debug console:

"Call-service API error. Error Message: extra keys not allowed @ data['0']"

If I replace the msg.textMessage with a hardcoded string, it works.

How do I use a variable as the text I want to send to my phone?

2

Hi

Variables need to be wrapped in curly braces. Try

{ "message": "{{ msg.textMessage }}", "target": "+1<myPhoneNumber>" }
3

Thanks! That moved me on to a new error message! :slightly_smiling_face:

4

Feel free to share, we’ve all been through that :grin:

5

I’m either getting the same error, or an error indicating that the SMS message is an empty string, based on whether I use “msg.textMessage” or just “textMessage” in the JSON. So I’m not sure I’m properly referencing my variable.

6

You don’t usually need the msg bit, now I come to think of it. E.g. msg.payload is {{ payload }}.

What’s the output of the debug node?

7

OK, this is odd. Here’s my function:

old_state = msg.data.old_state.state;
new_state = msg.data.new_state.state;

old_status = msg.data.old_state.attributes.lock_status;
new_status = msg.data.new_state.attributes.lock_status;

old_time = msg.data.old_state.last_changed;
new_time = msg.data.new_state.last_changed;

new_time_local = new Date(new_time);

textMessage = "The front door deadbolt changed state.\n";
textMessage += "  Old state: "
textMessage += old_state;
textMessage += " - ";
textMessage += old_status;

textMessage += "\n\n";

textMessage += "  New state: "
textMessage += new_state;
textMessage += " - ";
textMessage += new_status;

textMessage += "\n\n";
textMessage += "Date/time: ";
textMessage += new_time_local;

msg.textMessage = textMessage;

msg.textMessage2 = "Test message 2.";

return msg;

If I send textMessage2 to Twilio, the text message is sent and received by my phone. If I send textMessage, I get:

"Call-service API error. Error Message: extra keys not allowed @ data['0']"

Per the debug node, the msg object (after going through a JSON pretty-printer) is:

{
  "topic": "<reallyLongDeviceName>",
  "payload": "locked",
  "data": {
    "entity_id": "<reallyLongDeviceName>",
    "old_state": {
      "entity_id": "<reallyLongDeviceName>",
      "state": "unlocked",
      "attributes": {
        "node_id": 6,
        "value_index": 0,
        "value_instance": 1,
        "value_id": "<redacted>",
        "notification": "Manual Lock",
        "lock_status": "Manually Locked by Key Cylinder or Inside thumb turn",
        "friendly_name": "<friendlyName>"
      },
      "last_changed": "2020-04-29T01:14:33.032447+00:00",
      "last_updated": "2020-04-29T01:14:33.032447+00:00",
      "context": {
        "id": "<redacted>",
        "parent_id": null,
        "user_id": "<redacted>"
      }
    },
    "new_state": {
      "entity_id": "<reallyLongDeviceName>",
      "state": "locked",
      "attributes": {
        "node_id": 6,
        "value_index": 0,
        "value_instance": 1,
        "value_id": "<redacted>",
        "notification": "Manual Lock",
        "lock_status": "Manually Locked by Key Cylinder or Inside thumb turn",
        "friendly_name": "<friendlyName>"
      },
      "last_changed": "2020-04-29T01:16:48.925835+00:00",
      "last_updated": "2020-04-29T01:16:48.925835+00:00",
      "context": {
        "id": "<redacted>",
        "parent_id": null,
        "user_id": "<redacted>"
      },
      "timeSinceChangedMs": 55
    }
  },
  "_msgid": "38ff9f0.dc16862",
  "textMessage": "The front door deadbolt changed state.\n  Old state: unlocked - Manually Locked by Key Cylinder or Inside thumb turn\n\n  New state: locked - Manually Locked by Key Cylinder or Inside thumb turn\n\nDate/time: Tue Apr 28 2020 20:16:48 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)",
  "textMessage2": "Test message 2."
}

So what’s wrong with my textMessage string that the Twilio SMS sender thingy doesn’t like it?

8

Aha! It seems that Twilio doesn’t like the ‘\n’ character in the text message. Per this page, Twilio says I should use ‘%0a’ instead of ‘\n’ but when I do that I get a literal ‘%0a’ in the text message.

At least the text gets delivered, though… on to the next problem! :slight_smile:

9

Okay, I’ve troubleshooted until beer-thirty. Giving it a rest for the night.

When I use an Automation in HA rather than node red, I can use ‘\n’ without getting an error. That gets delivered as a string literal, however, as does ‘%0a’. Neither produces a new line in the received text message.

Anyone know how to get a line break (newline) in a message to twilio_sms? (I might have to create a new post with a more appropriate title, I think…)

10

Did I say I was giving it a rest for the night?

Okay, so the link I provided above to the Twilio site says that the ‘%0a’ string should be used when one of Twilio’s helper libraries isn’t being used.

I looked at the HA source code, and core/homeassistant/components/twilio/inti.py does import and use Client from twilio.rest, so from the Twilio side, the ‘\n’ character should work.

Therefore, I suspect that either node red, or HA, or both, are not passing along the ‘\n’ character as expected. I don’t have the skills (or motivation) to dig in and debug that right now, but it seems to me that this is likely a bug in either HA or nodered or both.

11

SOLVED!

I looked at the code for the call-service node in the HA node-red repo. That node is using JSON.parse() internally. Per this link, I need to escape \n as \\n. That does, in fact, do the trick.