aws-sdk-js: MessageStructure: 'json' is buggy?

I am trying to send a JSON message to an iOS client. When I send the message as plain text it work just fine. However, setting the “MessageStructure: ‘json’” and then the “Message” as a JSON object, as detailed in the AWS document I get a funny error: “InvalidParameterType: Expected params.Message to be a string”

If you want to send different messages for each transport protocol, set the value of the MessageStructure parameter to json and use a JSON object for the Message parameter. See the Examples section for the format of the JSON object. (From: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSJavaScriptSDK/latest/frames.html)

I am sending:

params = {
  MessageStructure: 'json',
  Message: { 
      default: 'A notification from us!',
      APNS_SANDBOX: {aps:{alert:"Hello and have a good day."}}
   },
   TargetArn: '...'
};

(I have also tried sending the APNS_SANDBOX as an escaped string, same issue…) To me this seems like a major bug.

Any ideas?

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 10 years ago
Comments: 34 (4 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

Found the issue about the “default” overriding the APNS property’s value; the “Massage” itself must be encoded as a valid string, say JSON.stringify() for example. The trick is applying the same to the “APNS_SANDBOX”. For example:

params = {
  MessageStructure: 'json',
  Message: JSON.stringify({
      default: "I am default":
      APNS_SANDBOX: JSON.stringify({aps:{alert:"Hello and have a good day."}})
   }),
   TargetArn: '...'
};

The above will make AWS SNS “ignore” the default and actually deliver what is expected. I wish I had access to the SNS documentation, I would make quite some changes.

Anyway, hope this helps somebody.

+25

aichholzer on May 14, 2014

That’s incredible that still in 2017 we have to dig in such old issues. Why not mention this example on the docs?

Anyway thank you @aichholzer 👍

USSliberty on Nov 9, 2017

Same issue here. Serious issues with the documentation and would never have figured this json -> string stuff out myself. Thanks, and please, someone fix those docs 😕

ir-fuel on Apr 28, 2016

And yes, I agree; the AWS documentation has room for a lot of improvement. A JSON encoded string is not a JSON object, not to me, at least.

aichholzer on Apr 24, 2014

@aichholzer You’re still saving people hours and hours of headaches! Thanks!

mdw19873 on Mar 6, 2017

Thanks you so much for this answer!

jnimis on Feb 18, 2017

@gloopeezza most welcome, I know how frustrating it can be.

aichholzer on May 15, 2014