Alexa developer console hangs when returning response from local debugger

[jhonj98]

Hi everyone,

Please can you help me with the following issue:

I'm using ask-sdk-local-debug for debugging my skill code, I normally test it without debugging using my lambda function deployed in amazon lambda, but now I want to debug my skill code, I'm using VS Code, when I launch my skill from the developer console testing, everythings seem to run ok, even I can see my debug starting in VS Code, with the information in local console too, so far so good, the thing is that never get a response and if I see the local console log there was a response, but this never gets to the developer console. here the screenshots

After a few seconds I see a time_out error in the local debug console log with the error "An exception occurred while dispatching the request to the skill".

I hope someone can help me.

Thank you in advanced.

Jhon Jairo.

[ShenChen93]

Hi @jhonj98 ,

Thanks for using our SDK and the new local debug feature. For the timeout error, it's as expected as alexa service will timeout if no response is returned after a while(If you are using breakpoint, the response will be hold and service side will report this error). But it seems there's no breakpoint hit based on your screen cut. I need to investigate why response is not send back to the service. Could you please provide us with the skill id ?

Thanks, Shen

[jhonj98]

Hello @ShenChen-Amazon ,

Thanks for your fast reply, the skill id is amzn1.ask.skill.2b8bf215-1cb4-4a60-adc6-ff7b4ab2bcce, the language of the skill is es_MX. And yes, there is no break point in my code.

Kind regards.

Jhon Jairo.

[sattpat]

Hi @jhonj98. Thanks for reporting this issue. Could you rerun this error scenario and notify us on this ticket as soon as you do so?

[jhonj98]

Hi @sattpat , I tested again the same scenario and the result is the same, no response yet in the developer console and timeout error in local console log.

Thank you.

Jhon Jairo.

[sattpat]

And just to make sure, if you were to stop debugging, does the skill interaction work against the configured lambda/https endpoint?

[jhonj98]

Yes! if I stop the debugging, and restart my skill testing in the developer console, the skill returns working with my configured lambda/https endpoint.

Jhon Jairo.

[lucapalano]

Same issue for me. Any news about this?

[sattpat]

Apologies for not updating the issue. Last time around I wasnt able to simulate the issue. @lucapalano and @jhonj98, is the locale you are using for testing, consistent with language used in your skill code base? In case of @jhonj98 , the response returned by your LOCAL skill code is in MX as well? @lucapalano and @jhonj98 if you can supply me the latest skill id that you are using when encountering this issue, that would be great.

[lucapalano]

Hi everyone,

is the locale you are using for testing, consistent with language used in your skill code base?

I don't know what NodeJS version was used by @jhonj98 . I'm using NodeJS 14.x with VSCode 1.53.2 on Mac OS X. I also tested it with embedded Skill Simulation in VSCode and from ask cli.

However, I found a solution to my issue. In my case, the timeout was due to the wrong handler registration:

let skill;

exports.handler = async function (event, context) {
  console.log(`REQUEST++++${JSON.stringify(event)}`);
  if (!skill) {
    skill = Alexa.SkillBuilders.custom()
      .addRequestHandlers(
        LaunchRequestHandler,
        HelloWorldIntentHandler,
        HelpIntentHandler,
        CancelAndStopIntentHandler,
        SessionEndedRequestHandler,
      )
      .addErrorHandlers(ErrorHandler)
      .create();
  }

  const response = await skill.invoke(event, context);
  console.log(`RESPONSE++++${JSON.stringify(response)}`);

  return response;
};

It was copied from this amazon guide. It worked when deployed remotely in the lambda but doesn't work when testing locally. Here is the working code:

exports.handler = Alexa.SkillBuilders.custom()
      .addRequestHandlers(
        LaunchRequestHandler,
        HelloWorldIntentHandler,
        HelpIntentHandler,
        CancelAndStopIntentHandler,
        SessionEndedRequestHandler,
      )
      .addErrorHandlers(ErrorHandler)
      .lambda();

In this case, no timeout has been generated when tested locally.

I don't know if this will also fix the @jhonj98 issue.

I hope this will help other people.

Best, Luca

[sattpat]

Marking the issue for closure. Please reopen if the issue hasnt been resolved.

[arunsingh28]

.

[FelixSelter]

Same issue for me

[doiron]

Hi FelixSelter, could you post the code where you build the skill, ie Alexa.SkillBuilders and comment on your skillId at the same time you attempt so I can know when to search for in the logs.

thanks

[techandsoftware]

I've got the same issue. Debugging with --region EU was unreliable, the debug console would hang then eventually get an exception. Today, local debugging doesn't even start with --region EU, as I get a websocket 500 error. I switched to --region NA and downloaded the same skill with an NA account, and this debugs reliably.