"Message couldn't be sent because another question is waiting to be answered"

(Yun) #1

I’ve created 2 flows.

Flow A: 1) Ask user a question
2) Trigger Flow B
3) Ask user another question

Flow B: 1) Ask user a question
2) Add row to Google Sheet of answer from #1

However, the bot is unable to process Flow A’s #3 task.

The logs stated that at #3, “the message couldn’t be sent because another question is already waiting to be answered.”, despite all tasks in both flows were completed.

I’ve re-do the flow and the same problem still crops up.

Appreciate if you could solve this question.

(Yun) #2

I’ve also tried removing Flow A’s #3 task and run the whole program to see if there are any unanswered question.

No such errors were found and all jobs were completed successfully in both flows.

(Kellsey Shaw) #3

Hi Yun,

It’s not possible to ask a user a question from different flows at the same time, which is why you are seeing this error. When a bot asks a question, it goes into ‘question mode’ so that it can wait for an answer and it knows that the next message from the user will be the answer to that question.

If we didn’t have this ‘question mode’ we wouldn’t be able to tell what question the user was answering if multiple questions were asked.

(Glenn Geller) #4

Hello,

I realize I’m late to the conversation here, but I too ran into a similar thing.

In my case, I am simply using send message to a response path (active), and since the user may be busy answering another question, I’d like to wait and retry the message after some seconds (I can do that).

But I don’t seem to see anywhere to access this “error” if exists (as a response, it shows in the details) when attempting a wait until…

Am I missing something? Should the flow be able to tell if this send message indeed was NOT delivered, in its response?

I just don’t seem to have access to the result of “Send Message”.

Please advise.

Thanks,

GG @ VDO

(Daniel Beckett) #5

Hi @GGVDO

Unfortunately there’s no output or conditional logic that can be applied based on errors. This is something over on the development roadmap to be considered for future updates.

1 Like
(Philipp Tschol) #6

Hi Daniel!

I have the exactly same problem right now. My bot is starting again but refusing to send a normal standard message to the user with the same error:

“The message couldn’t be sent because another question is already waiting to be answered.
Close”.

But there is no previous question, just getting attributes. I cannot stop it with “stop” and restart it, completely strange.

Seems like a bug to me - just send me a PM if you want to know which account / flow I have used if you want to analyse the problem.

Best,
Philipp

(Philipp Tschol) #7

Just to mention - the problem startet after I got this error message:

“Sorry, your message couldn’t be processed because of a temporary error, please try again.”

After that just my user is completely upside down…

(Daniel Beckett) #8

Do you have any other flows that could have a pending question? If so, what expiry time was set on the question that was asked?

(Pablo Leonhart) #9

@DanielBeckett I have the same problem, but my questions are with “never” expiration time. So now, the bot is trapped in “the message couldn’t be sent because another question is already waiting to be answered.”
What can I do to HARD RESET the Bot?
Thanks

(Daniel Beckett) #10

Hi @Pablo_Leonhart

Unfortunately there’s no hard reset feature other than deleting a bot and installing it again which would generate new response paths and would lose any subscribed users. For a question to end after it has been sent to a user with an expiry of ‘never’ they need to answer the question.

(Alexey Klepov) #12

Hi guys.
I have the same problem: some users do not receive messages. After chatting with support and studying the community, I realized that the bot had gone into answer waiting mode. I found answer that users have to give, they wrote it but it did not help. The mode is still waiting answer.
In my case broadcast is invoked by a webhook every hour from 10-00 to 19-00. I found in the logs that there is no broadcast from 24th May 2018 18:00 and the problems started just after that. And I know, that webhook was issued. In broadcast from 24th May 2018 19:00 all messages failed by the same reason: “The message couldn’t be sent because another question is already waiting to be answered”.

So, the problem is in missing broadcast with question which turn bot in the “question mode”. And as broadcast is missing users can’t answer to it.

I think that without the help of support this issue can not be solved. The option of removing the bot that I saw in the community is not allowed.
What can be done in this situation?

BTW. In the Users section I found menu item “clear open questions”. I tryed it, but it did not help.

(John Jackson) #13

What happens when you use the ‘clear open questions’ option on the user’s menu? That should clear this situation. If it doesn’t, if you could send support your user’s response path and let them know that the ‘clear open questions’ option doesn’t fix this, and tell them what you see in your flow, they will be able to take a deeper look.

Unfortunately there’s no way to reset all user’s open questions in this way.

(Ibrahim Ayub) #14

i’m having this same issue - I’m ‘clearing open questions’ for users but when I try to send a new broadcast I still get the error that it’s waiting for another question to be answered

(Daniel Beckett) #15

Hi @Ibrahim_Ayub

To avoid this you’ll want to make sure you have set the questions in your flow to not be using an infinite expiry time. You will need to edit your flow where the questions are asked and set it so that the questions can expire.

Once that’s done you should be able to clear the question state and broadcast to the users.