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--telegram-chat can't handle negative sender_chat id values #16

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buzzeddesign opened this issue Aug 13, 2021 · 7 comments
Closed

--telegram-chat can't handle negative sender_chat id values #16

buzzeddesign opened this issue Aug 13, 2021 · 7 comments
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documentation Improvements or additions to documentation

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@buzzeddesign
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Same issue as described here in urlwatch: thp/urlwatch#622 (comment)

Listing chats when the Telegram Bot is a participant in a channel results in web changes and urlwatch bombing out due tot eh channel chat id being a negative number.

Likewise, when trying the telegram reporter, the telegram report to the channel identified by a negative chat ID fails.
@mborsetti
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mborsetti commented Aug 13, 2021 •
edited

Hi Sean,

Thanks for the report!

I am trying to track down where the issue lies, but am getting confused. Would you be so kind to run webchanges --verbose --test-reporters telegram and post the results (please manually obfuscate the values of bot_token and chat_id from the error message)?

Thanks.

@buzzeddesign
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buzzeddesign commented Aug 13, 2021 via email

@mborsetti
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Hi Steve,

The error comes back from Telegram as a response to calling its API 'https://api.telegram.org/bot{bot_token}/sendMessage' to send the message. This API is documented at https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#sendmessage, and while there's nothing in there specific to negative chat_ids, it does say that such ID is the "Unique identifier for the target chat or username of the target channel (in the format @channelusername). So you may want to try using the @channelusername (if available, I don't use Telegram so wouldn't know) to see if that works, otherwise I really wouldn't know as it's a Telegram issue.

@mborsetti
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mborsetti commented Aug 13, 2021 •
edited

BTW, it appears that you also need to "initialize" the group otherwise the API does not recognize it; send a message to the group so that the group has at least 1 message.

@buzzeddesign
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buzzeddesign commented Aug 13, 2021 •
edited

while there's nothing in there specific to negative chat_ids, it does say that such ID is the "Unique identifier for the target chat or username of the target channel (in the format @channelusername). So you may want to try using the @channelusername (if available, I don't use Telegram so wouldn't know) to see if that works

That did it!! Brilliant! Thanks :)

In webchanges --edit-config, if the intended target is a channel and the bot is admin of the channel, then the chat id should be @channelusername, like this:

  telegram:
    bot_token: '1234567890:iuasdhoaihofgojsdfoifasofsoiabsfoi'
    chat_id:
      - '0987654321'
      - '@channelusername'

@mborsetti
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Happy it worked out. Will update the documentation based on your input; thanks!

@mborsetti mborsetti added the documentation Improvements or additions to documentation label Aug 13, 2021
@mborsetti mborsetti reopened this Aug 13, 2021
@mborsetti
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I just released v3.8.2, whose documentation addresses this very user case here (yes, just noticed a typo in the link there...damn gremlins!)

Thanks so much for opening an issue; very much appreciated! 🎉

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