POST trouble and incomplete error message in dashboard

Software Tools Data Engine and Dashboard
1

Hi, I am trying to send data via POST to a php website I made using the Advanced Webhook builder.

I can send the data to Thingspeak from the Webhook Builder without any trouble using the destination URL:
http://api.thingspeak.com/update?key=YOURTHINGSPEAKAPIKEY
and POST payload:
<<decdata>>

where <<decdata>> is &lat=31.1&lon=-106.1 (or something close)

I can also send data to my php page using curl from my desktop:
curl --data "&lat=31.1&lon=-106.1" http://MYSITE.com/track.php

But when I try send the data directly to my site using the Webhook Builder, using the destination URL:
http://MYSITE.com/track.php
and POST payload:
<<decdata>>

I get a ‘route error’ message in the dashboard. Unfortunetely, it is truncated:

Server sent HTTP status code 500 with body: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
 
 <head>
 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
 <tit

Is there a way to get the full error message? Also, is there something obviously wrong with my approach?

2

Hmm, we should probably strip out HTML from errors like that so we just get the message. I’ll make a note to the team.

I’m not sure why that wouldn’t be working. You could try using https://requestb.in/ to see the exact payload that is coming out of our cloud.

3

RequestBin is a great suggestion, but I do think it is valuable to be able to see any detailedbnerror message as it comes back from the server.

4

Yeah, sorry about that. Unfortunately the db field isn’t long enough with all of the HTML data. We’ll look into improving that soon.

5

Ok, requestBin shows me that using curl:
FORM/POST PARAMETERS

lat: 30.1
lon: -106.1

and using the dash:

FORM/POST PARAMETERS

None

I note that curl includes a field:
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

which is missing from the dashbord’s request. How can I use the dash to actually include those parameters?

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

6

Is this your own sketch? What does your sendMessage call in there look like?

7

It is my own sketch, but I am developing this remotely and the remote computer is shut down right now. I am using the simulate feature right now to resend data that came in earlier. The data did show up correctly in the dashboard, however:

&lat=31.7796837&lon=-106.4787569

8

Oh, so if you put that data into the simulate thing on the dashboard, then it does make it to your server correctly?

9

Oh I may be misunderstanding. I wonder if that missing header is the issue. You can add that in the advanced webhook builder manually so it matches up.

10

Well, yes, but I do get the error message that is truncated. If I malform the request completely, the error message changes to a 404…
Using the requestbin that was suggested, it seems likely that the missing form parameters are the culprit.

11

Ok, how can I add those missing parameters in the webhook builder? Trying to add them as ‘headers’ has no effect in requestbin.

12

One more datapoint:
It looks like the POST data is truly empty. I went and submitted to
http://posttestserver.com/post.php
Using the dashboard, which gives me:

Time: Thu, 19 Oct 17 06:01:03 +0000
Source ip: 23.253.159.55

Headers (Some may be inserted by server)
HTTP_HOST = posttestserver.com
HTTP_CONNECTION = keep-alive
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING = gzip, deflate
HTTP_ACCEPT = */*
HTTP_USER_AGENT = HologramCloud (https://hologram.io)
HTTP_LAT = 31.7796837
HTTP_LON = -106.4
CONTENT_LENGTH = 32
REMOTE_ADDR = 23.253.159.55
DOCUMENT_ROOT = /var/www/html
REQUEST_SCHEME = http
CONTEXT_PREFIX = 
CONTEXT_DOCUMENT_ROOT = /var/www/html
REMOTE_PORT = 48676
GATEWAY_INTERFACE = CGI/1.1
REQUEST_METHOD = POST
QUERY_STRING = 
REQUEST_URI = /post.php
PHP_SELF = /post.php
REQUEST_TIME_FLOAT = 1508392863.321
REQUEST_TIME = 1508392863

No Post Params.
Empty post body.

Upload contains PUT data:
&lat=31.7796837&lon=-106.4787569

So the data coming from hologram is only included as PUT data not in actual POST parameters.

How can I fix that?

13

That’s really weird considering we don’t support PUTs right now. I’ll investigate further and get back to you

14

I dug into this some more and it looks like it is because of the Content-Type header.
When I set the Content-Type correctly based on the payload then everything works:

image.png726×210 4.42 KB 

Time: Thu, 19 Oct 17 20:29:00 +0000
Source ip: 172.99.68.109

Headers (Some may be inserted by server)
HTTP_HOST = posttestserver.com
HTTP_CONNECTION = keep-alive
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING = gzip, deflate
HTTP_ACCEPT = */*
HTTP_USER_AGENT = HologramCloud (https://hologram.io)
CONTENT_TYPE = application/x-www-form-urlencoded
CONTENT_LENGTH = 22
REMOTE_ADDR = 172.99.68.109
DOCUMENT_ROOT = /var/www/html
REQUEST_SCHEME = http
CONTEXT_PREFIX = 
CONTEXT_DOCUMENT_ROOT = /var/www/html
REMOTE_PORT = 35999
GATEWAY_INTERFACE = CGI/1.1
REQUEST_METHOD = POST
QUERY_STRING = status_code=400
REQUEST_URI = /post.php?status_code=400
PHP_SELF = /post.php
REQUEST_TIME_FLOAT = 1508444940.84
REQUEST_TIME = 1508444940

Post Params:
key: 'test1' value: 'asdf'
key: 'test2' value: '1234'
Empty post body.

Upload contains PUT data:
&test1=asdf&test2=1234
15

I can confirm that that works! Thanks for the help!

BTW, how did you know that Content-Type in the dashboard would resolve to CONTENT_TYPE in the request that was sent?

16

It doesn’t really. We send it exactly as shown. I think that guy is just pulling all the variables right out of what PHP gives you and it normalizes things into that format. RequestBin is a more accurate representation of what gets sent.
Content-Type is the official HTTP header.

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