Im gonna eat crow… sort of…
No Telegram in BROADCAST mode does not require exposure… I stumbled across the component page… I was reading one of the OTHER 4 pages… which didn’t reference the page I found!
Most likely I just didnt see it!.. because FOUND IT
but It wasnt mentioned here:
or on the other three component pages… UGH…
But Im still getting this error
xxxxxxxxxxx = My Chat Id
Error sending message: Forbidden: bot can't initiate conversation with a user. Args: (xxxxxxxxxxx, 'This is a test'), kwargs: {'parse_mode': 'Markdown', 'disable_notification': False, 'disable_web_page_preview': None, 'reply_to_message_id': None, 'reply_markup': None, 'timeout': None
I know someone’s gomnna ask… so…
I know that’s what I thought too! (BTW I got it figured out)… for me it turned out hat you needed to go thru the web interface and use telegram.me/<My_BotsName>>_bot
to have your conversation
Ya know Rick… as soon as you’d get it done… the tool will have shifted … and I simply dont know enough about the subject! That be just like relying on a year old youtube “How To”… it might be close… but just not quite.
In this case I discovered that there were 4 or 5 different “modes” polling, broadcast…etc But each was written up not referencing the other… so on a google search… you’d get one but not another… problematic for a person just fresh on the HA boat. But Im coming around
See… a priori . information… you’d have to know how the tool worked to know that… or found it in a search… Its most likely in the documentation… just beyond where I stopped reading LOL
I’m getting along … Ive started on boarding more entities… learning a bit of templateing
What I’m trying to figure out is how you got a CHAT ID for your bot, when you didn’t have a CHAT going with the bot. Without the bot being in a chat, it doesn’t have a chat ID.