Dialogflow-fulfillment-nodejs: How to persistently store value in conv.user.storage?

[philipskokoh]

This happens when I migrate from deprecated anonymous ID in userId to userStorage.
Based on this guideline, we are advised to generate our own user id (not using userId property)
https://developers.google.com/actions/identity/user-info

Using this dialogflow-fulfillment-nodejs, how to store data in conv.user.storage?
I use this way, but it seems that the data are not persistently stored in user.storage. It can only be access in that particular conversation session.
In the action simulator, after I click cancel and start new conversation Talk to appName, the user.storage always back to empty.

// profile_information contains user data such as uid, name, etc.
let conv = agent.conv();
conv.user.storage = {
    profile: profile_information
};
conv.ask(`Thank you! Hello ${profile.givenName}, how can I help you?`);
agent.add(conv);

My current usage is this.
For new user, the bot asks permission to get user name. After that I will assign a uid to the user. Store the uid info in user.storage.
Next time the user 'talk to appName', I check user.storage, if the user is new, the bot will ask for the permission, otherwise the bot straightaway offer the service.

Please advise.

[r-nasiri]

are you using the lates version of the library? I am using the storage in my app and it works fine. are you sure you are not overwriting the user.storage by accident?

[philipskokoh]

I am using dialogflow-fulfillment version 0.6.1, and action-on-google version 2.5.0.
In one chat session it works, the information is attached in the user storage.
However, when I close the conversation, new session starts with empty user storage. At the moment, I still rely on (deprecated) conv.user._id for detect returning users.

[r-nasiri]

here is a sample code that has been tested and works :

 function welcome(agent) {
     const conv = agent.conv();
     if(conv) {
         let guid = '';
         if(!conv.user.storage.guid) {
             conv.user.storage.guid='6b0434fe-82d5-43da-96ad-0da7377de3e4';
         } else {
             guid = `back ${conv.user.storage.guid}`;
         }
         conv.ask(`welcome ${guid}`);
         agent.add(conv);
         return;
     }
     agent.add(`Welcome to my agent!`);
    }

[philipskokoh]

Hmm.. It does not work at my side.
After the bot left the conversation (by clicking 'cancel' or conv.close()), the conv.user.storage is back to empty. At least, this is what I see on testing using action simulator.

[palg]

Having the same issue....

[zehrasubas]

Have you checked user storage expiration reasons? There might be two reasons that causes empty storage:

1. Voice match is set up and there is no match.
2. The user disabled personal data.

You can check more from here: https://developers.google.com/actions/assistant/save-data

[philipskokoh]

How to check whether a user disabled/enabled personal data? Any way to check that?
I never set anything during the test.

[zehrasubas]

You can search that in Google, there're settings to disable it. You might have done while setting your Google account. Have you checked voice match option?

[philipskokoh]

I do not use any voice. It's still running on the simulator test.
Actually the user identity is matched because the conv.user._id is always correct. It's just the user storage somehow always resets to empty in the beginning of the conversation.

[zehrasubas]

hmm... that's not the case for you then. One other thing might be disabling and enabling simulator (I'm assuming you're having this issue on the test version). Every time when you disable and enable the simulator on AoG it resets everything.

[priyankark]

I am facing the same issue. Any luck resolving it?

[yucensun]

I'm facing the same issue too. Is there any update? thanks!

[pareshv]

any resolution?

[zehrasubas]

Hi, I think this issue is related with G-suite account permissions. Can you enable Web & App Activity for all accounts also sWAA needs to be enabled (please see attached screenshot)

[pareshv]

This is already set on the account I use.

[achraf-boussaada]

Hi, i was facing the same problem as you.. I found the fix in this comment. Basically when enabling the Web & App permissions in the Activity Center you need also to check "include chrome history .... "

[rpyn]

Me too. My case is stored data is saved and fetched as expected, but sometimes it returns empty so it becomes undefined when I access it. I have no clue to solve this. Anyone having similar issues?

[philipskokoh]

It seems that the issue does not happen in the simulator UI, so I close this issue.

Latest documentation shows that user storage does not work if user status is GUEST.
https://developers.google.com/actions/assistant/guest-users
It's better to use account linkage to identify a user, not relying on user storage.

[bruriah1999]

I am having the same problem. the conv.user.verification is VERIFIED and also include chrome history is checked. any other suggestions?

[arjan]

I have the same issue. VERIFIED user but userStorage is not returned in the next request. Please reopen..

[hacmia]

I'm running into the same issue. After a week of tinkering, the best I am able to get is the following:

• If I perform the save onto conv.user.storage using the google home mini device or in the simulator, then it works.

If I use my S7's assistant, then it doesn't store into the conv.user.storage. The odd thing is that according to my logs it's making it. But, it's not storing.

Could this be a stale cache issue (just throwing this out there. I'm out of ideas)?

Thanks in advance!

[arjan]

Today i've seen this issue as well, in the simulator; for one account it did work, for the other it didn't. Both accounts showed up as VERIFIED in the requests.

[CodeByJordi]

I'm also having issues. The user storage only seems to be active in the welcome intent. Any data that I try to retrieve outside the welcome intent is undefined and storing data outside the welcome intent is lost.

[sachitad]

I second this issue in simulator.

[priyankark]

I was having this issue months ago. At the time, I contacted the support team at Google and they came back with the response that use your own external database despite me pointing out their own documentation of using the local storage.

Eventually I got the local storage thing to work on phones. It still wouldn't work on the simulator though.

[hacmia]

@priyankark - I wasn't having the issue w/just the simulator. It actually worked most times in the simulator, but not always. It worked always on the google home mini I am testing on. But, it never worked right on the assistant using my phone. I mean never... In the end I set myself back about a week and a half and I ended up just using the conversation token in conjunction with a database to store what I need persistence.

edit: Minor setback which I hope one day is fixed, because the capabilities this has and ease of development overall are super cool

[sachitad]

@hacmia , I don't mind using conversationToken because I am using firestore DB anyway for other stuff. Having said that though, is conversationToken always same for the same user object? I don't have account linking in the app that I am building.

[bruriah1999]

@hacmia , I don't mind using conversationToken because I am using firestore DB anyway for other stuff. Having said that though, is conversationToken always same for the same user object? I don't have account linking in the app that I am building.

conversationToken isn't related to the user, it is different in every 'call', every request from the user is a new token. It refers to the context of the conversation.
How do you test your app? I'll tell you where to see the token

[hacmia]

@bruriah1999 Agreed 100% it's not the conversationToken. I was already using it between the intents. I wanted to use the userStorage to persist the data between conversations because the size of the data lent itself perfectly for this functionality. It just didn't work out for me, so I ended up using a firebase realtime database for now.

[sachitad]

@bruriah1999 at the moment I am testing it in the console.

[bruriah1999]

@sachitad
So under the REQUEST headline, with every input of the user, you receive some sort of JSON file. Look for the key conversationToken and the value of it should be the context you are currently on, it could be more than one.
Any wayes if you are still trying to store the data of the conversation, I managed to do that with the conv.user.data. If you are still having trouble with this please try to be more specified.

[paul3412]

for me, assistant on 2 different phones, on actions on google sdk, both of the VERIFIED users,
one of them stops sending the user token on the third response, every time 🤦
the other works fine, and the MAIN intent always receives user token. anybody else face this?