Handling API exceptions in Rasa action server

Rasa Open Source
1

I have to handle API call exceptions in Rasa action server. For Example, I have a list of restaurant databases, which I will host it in a local server. In rasa action server, I would host this local server and access information from the database.

If wrong database has hosted, it throws 501 http error. When this error occurs, I can now log this error,but I would like to send a message as a response to user.

If 501 error occurs,

For,
User Input: Can you look for cheap restaurant in centre of town
system output: I am sorry for the inconvenience, I have encountered an Internal service error. Could you please try again later

How can I handle this in Rasa action server? Could I get any information regarding this?

2

How are you making API calls from actions.py ? If you are using requests package, then it should be quite easy.

3

Inside the run method of your Action class, you can use requests to make API call like this:

    try:
       log.debug(f'URL for API: {_url}')
       resp = requests.get(_url)
   except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
            s = getattr(e,'message', str(e))
            log.error(f'Unable to get data due to {s}.')
  message = 'I am sorry for the inconvenience, I have encountered an Internal service error. Could you please try again later'
  dispatcher.utter_button_message(message)
4

Hi @tonysinghmss Thanks for the reply. I have tried it, but still it throws me an exception instead of an error message

In run() method of my action class, I have defined as follows,

class RestaurantInform(Action): def name(self): return “Restaurant-Inform”

def run(self, dispatcher, tracker, domain):        
    try:
        count, specific_data, name, addr, ph_no, post_code= ActionSearchRestaurants.entity_extract(self, dispatcher, tracker, domain)
        
        if len(specific_data) != 0:
            message = dispatcher.utter_message(f"There are {count} options available. The list of Restaurant names are {specific_data}. Could you tell me which one do you prefer?")
            return message
        elif len(addr)!=0 and len(ph_no)!=0 and len(post_code)!=0:
            message_1 = dispatcher.utter_message(f"The restaurant {name} is located at {addr} and their phone number is {ph_no}. The post code of the restaurant is {post_code}")  
            return message_1
        else:
            pass
    except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
        s = getattr(e,'message', str(e))
        logger.info(f'Unable to get data due to {s}.')
        message = 'I am sorry for the inconvenience, I have encountered an Internal service error. Could you please try again later'
        dispatcher.utter_message(message)

Instead of giving me the message

 message = 'I am sorry for the inconvenience, I have encountered an Internal service error. Could you please try again later'

I get the following exception,

Your input → can you look for cheap restaurants in centre of town?
Could you give me some other suggestion?

2019-11-06 11:09:56 ERROR rasa.core.processor - Encountered an exception while running action ‘Action-Search’. Bot will continue, but the actions events are lost. Please check the logs of your action server for more information.

2019-11-06 11:09:57 ERROR rasa.core.processor - Encountered an exception while running action ‘Restaurant-Inform’. Bot will continue, but the actions events are lost. Please check the logs of your action server for more information.

5

Can you put log of your actions.py? That will help in better understanding of your issue.

6

This is the information, which I have received,

2019-11-06 11:52:16 INFO rasa_sdk.endpoint - Action endpoint is up and running. on (‘0.0.0.0’, 5055)

2019-11-06 11:52:35 WARNING rasa_sdk.endpoint - Your versions of rasa and rasa_sdk might not be compatible. You are currently running rasa version 1.4.0a1 and rasa_sdk version 1.3.2.

To ensure compatibility use the same version for both, modulo the last number, i.e. using version A.B.x the numbers A and B should be identical for both rasa and rasa_sdk.

2019-11-06 11:52:35 DEBUG rasa_sdk.executor - Received request to run ‘Restaurant-Request’

2019-11-06 11:52:35 DEBUG rasa_sdk.executor - Finished running ‘Restaurant-Request’

127.0.0.1 - - [2019-11-06 11:52:35] “POST /webhook HTTP/1.1” 200 220 0.000000

2019-11-06 11:52:36 WARNING rasa_sdk.endpoint - Your versions of rasa and rasa_sdk might not be compatible. You are currently running rasa version 1.4.0a1 and rasa_sdk version 1.3.2.

To ensure compatibility use the same version for both, modulo the last number, i.e. using version A.B.x the numbers A and B should be identical for both rasa and rasa_sdk.

2019-11-06 11:52:36 DEBUG rasa_sdk.executor - Received request to run ‘Action-Search’

2019-11-06 11:52:36 DEBUG urllib3.connectionpool - Starting new HTTP connection (1): 127.0.0.1:3128

2019-11-06 11:52:36 DEBUG urllib3.connectionpool - http://127.0.0.1:3128 “GET http://localhost:5000/restaurant HTTP/1.1” 404 447

2019-11-06 11:52:36 DEBUG error-info.log - The requested URL could not be found. I could not disclose whether it is temporary or permanent

2019-11-06 11:52:36 ERROR flask.app - Exception on /webhook [POST]

Traceback (most recent call last):

File “c:\apps\sa2446\lib\site-packages\flask\app.py”, line 2292, in wsgi_app response = self.full_dispatch_request()

File “c:\apps\sa2446\lib\site-packages\flask\app.py”, line 1815, in full_dispatch_request rv = self.handle_user_exception(e)

File “c:\apps\sa2446\lib\site-packages\flask_cors\extension.py”, line 161, in wrapped_function return cors_after_request(app.make_response(f(*args, **kwargs)))

File “c:\apps\sa2446\lib\site-packages\flask\app.py”, line 1718, in handle_user_exception reraise(exc_type, exc_value, tb)

File “c:\apps\sa2446\lib\site-packages\flask_compat.py”, line 35, in reraise raise value

File “c:\apps\sa2446\lib\site-packages\flask\app.py”, line 1813, in full_dispatch_request rv = self.dispatch_request()

File “c:\apps\sa2446\lib\site-packages\flask\app.py”, line 1799, in dispatch_request return self.view_functionsrule.endpoint

File “c:\apps\sa2446\lib\site-packages\flask_cors\decorator.py”, line 128, in wrapped_function resp = make_response(f(*args, **kwargs))

File “c:\apps\sa2446\lib\site-packages\rasa_sdk\endpoint.py”, line 59, in webhook response = executor.run(action_call)

File “c:\apps\sa2446\lib\site-packages\rasa_sdk\executor.py”, line 259, in run validated_events = self.validate_events(events, action_name)

File “c:\apps\sa2446\lib\site-packages\rasa_sdk\executor.py”, line 209, in validate_events for e in events:

TypeError: ‘HTTPError’ object is not iterable 127.0.0.1 - - [2019-11-06 12:36:30] “POST /webhook HTTP/1.1” 500 411 0.015621

7

Hi,

Could you please suggest, how to track information, errors in a logger? I a using the below codes in my action file but it’s not capturing anything, neither any log files created as of now. (its also not showing any error.

import logging
logging.basicConfig(filename='logfile.log', format='%(asctime)s - %(levelname)s - %(name)s - %(message)s', datefmt='%m/%d/%Y %I:%M:%S %p')
logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)


def submit(
        self,
        dispatcher: CollectingDispatcher,
        tracker: Tracker,
        domain: Dict[Text, Any],
    ) -> List[Dict]:
	
	 try:
	........
	........
	........

except Exception as e:
            msg = 'Unfortunately I am not able to extract requested information! <br>You can still contact us via email 🙂'
            dispatcher.utter_message(text= msg)
            logger.error(e)
            # logger.exception()
            logger.exception("Failed to extract data for " + project + "(" + query + ")")
            return []

Will appreciate your response.