Botkit slackbot error "Could not load team while processing webhook" - express

Question

I have created a simple express server and added a /slack/receive route to handle webhook requests from the Slack events API:
// routes.js (which is used by my app defined in server.js)
...
let slack = require('./controllers/slack');
router.post('/slack/receive', slack.receive);
...
I then use Botkit to create a simple Slack application:
// controllers/slack.js
'use strict';
const logger = require('../config/winston');
// initialise firebase storage for botkit
const admin = require('firebase-admin');
var serviceAccount = require('../config/firebase.json');
admin.initializeApp({
credential: admin.credential.cert(serviceAccount)
});
var db = admin.firestore();
db.settings({
timestampsInSnapshots: true
})
// initialise botkit for slack
const botkit = require('botkit');
const controller = botkit.slackbot({
storage: require('botkit-storage-firestore')({ database: db }),
clientId: process.env.SLACK_CLIENT_ID,
clientSecret: process.env.SLACK_CLIENT_SECRET,
clientSigningSecret: process.env.SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET,
redirectUri: process.env.SLACK_REDIRECT,
disable_startup_messages: true,
send_via_rtm: false,
debug: true,
scopes: ['bot', 'chat:write:bot'],
})
controller.hears('Hello', 'direct_mention,direct_message', (bot, message) => {
logger.info(message);
bot.reply(message, 'I heard a message!');
})
exports.receive = (req, res, next) => {
res.sendStatus(200);
logger.debug(req.body);
controller.handleWebhookPayload(req, res);
};
The server initialises correctly, but as soon as the slack webhook receives a request the following error happens:
Could not load team while processing webhook: Error: could not find team T5VDRMWKX
at E:\Documents\upper-revolutions\node_modules\botkit\lib\SlackBot.js:169:24
at firebaseRef.doc.get.then.catch.err (E:\Documents\upper-revolutions\node_modules\botkit-storage-firestore\src\index.js:86:13)
at <anonymous>
at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:118:7)
So far I have found that:
Having/not having storage in the botkit slackbot makes no difference
The error happens within the handleWebhookPayload method as code within controller.hears() does not get executed

Answer 1

This error occurs because botkit needs some form of storage where it can store all the teams (channels and users too) and retrive it later on.
So, When your method handleWebhookPayload gets executed it calls another method called
findAppropriateTeam that will query for the specified team record in the storage provided by you (It might be mongoDB or a JSON file or other). The error is saying that you do not have any record in the storage with the id provided.
So this might implicate two things:
You did not provide a storage for botkit to work
You did not save the team id in the storage
The solution to the first problem is quite simple. You just need to install mongodb in your machine and then pass to botkit the MONGO_URL.
NOTE: I see that you are using the botkit simple storage and this might be the problem since I also have experieced some troubles with this kind of storage not saving records.
const controller = botkit.slackbot({
storage: 'mongodb//localhost:27017:/yourdb',
})
//OR
const controller = botkit.slackbot({
storage: process.env.MONGO_URL,
})
The possible solution to the second problem:
I will assume you are using botkit locally, so you must be using some tunneling like ngrok or localtunnel. In that case make sure:
You provided the redirect URL to Slack (Ex, https://your_url/oauth)
You accessed the https://your_url/login page
Botkit saves your team id on the provided storage when you access the /login route and authorizes the app. So if you skipped that part then botkit won't save your team id and therfore will throw an error when you receive events later on.
Check this like [https://github.com/howdyai/botkit/issues/938] for discutions on the topic
I hope this helps!