nc-talk-ai/docs/WEBHOOK_DEBUG_GUIDE.md

Webhook Debugging

What to check when a bot doesn't respond in Talk.

Diagnostic Steps

1. Bot activated in the room? Open the conversation settings (⚙️) and confirm "Talk AI" is active in the bots list.

2. Webhook registered?

sudo -u www-data php occ talk:bot:list

You should see the Talk AI bot with state = 1 and features webhook, response. A growing error_count means Talk can't deliver webhooks — usually a wrong URL (see below).

3. Watch the log while mentioning the bot:

tail -f /path/to/nextcloud/data/nextcloud.log | grep -i educai

A successful interaction logs this sequence:

========== Talk AI Webhook Received ==========
Extracted webhook data (message: "@mybot hello", room_token: "xxx")
Bot detected (bot_id: 1, mention_name: @mybot)
Calling LLM API
Got LLM response
Successfully sent reply to Talk
========== Webhook Processing Complete ==========

Where the sequence stops tells you what failed:

Log stops at	Likely cause
Nothing at all	Bot not activated in the room, wrong webhook URL, or network issue
"Invalid webhook signature"	Webhook secret in settings ≠ secret used in talk:bot:install
"No bot mention found"	Typo or case mismatch in the @mention name, or the bot doesn't exist
"Failed to get LLM response"	Wrong endpoint/key/model, or no network route to the provider
"Failed to send reply to Talk"	Talk API issue or invalid room token

Common Issues

405 Method Not Allowed — webhook URL missing /index.php

The most common problem. The webhook URL must include /index.php on installations that route apps through it:

• ❌ https://cloud.example.com/apps/educai/webhook/talk
• ✅ https://cloud.example.com/index.php/apps/educai/webhook/talk

Fix by re-registering:

sudo -u www-data php occ talk:bot:uninstall "Talk AI"
sudo -u www-data php occ talk:bot:install \
  -f webhook,response \
  "Talk AI" \
  "your-webhook-secret" \
  "https://cloud.example.com/index.php/apps/educai/webhook/talk"

Signature verification fails

The secret saved in Talk AI settings must exactly match the one passed to talk:bot:install.

1. Generate a secret: openssl rand -hex 32
2. Save it in the Talk AI admin settings.
3. Re-register the bot with the same secret (commands above).

For local testing only, an empty webhook secret skips verification.

"Sorry, I'm having trouble connecting…"

The webhook works; the LLM call fails. Verify endpoint, key, and model name, and test directly:

curl https://your-api-endpoint/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"your-model","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"test"}]}'

Payload Reference

Talk delivers messages as signed POST requests. Useful when testing by hand:

Message text:  $payload['object']['content']  → JSON-decode, read the 'message' key
Room token:    $payload['target']['id']
User ID:       $payload['actor']['id']
Message ID:    $payload['object']['id']       → string in the payload, used as int

Replies back to Talk are signed with:

'X-Nextcloud-Talk-Bot-Random'    => $random,
'X-Nextcloud-Talk-Bot-Signature' => hash_hmac('sha256', $random . $message, $secret)

Manual webhook test:

cat > /tmp/test-webhook.json <<'EOF'
{
  "type": "Create",
  "actor": { "type": "user", "id": "admin", "name": "Admin" },
  "object": { "type": "message", "id": 1,
              "content": "{\"message\":\"@mybot test\",\"parameters\":[]}" },
  "target": { "type": "chat", "id": "test-room-token", "name": "Test Room" }
}
EOF

curl -X POST http://localhost/index.php/apps/educai/webhook/talk \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d @/tmp/test-webhook.json \
  -w "\nHTTP: %{http_code}\n"

(Without valid signature headers this exercises routing and parsing, not the full flow.)

Advanced

# raise log level
sudo -u www-data php occ log:manage --level debug

# check delivery failures
sudo -u www-data php occ talk:bot:list   # error_count column

If it still doesn't work, open an issue with the log excerpt (from "Webhook Received" to the failure), your Nextcloud version, and whether the LLM endpoint works when called directly.