Develop Reference

Unable to log user state information to transcript

I am using TranscriptLoggerMiddleware and CosmosDB to log my chatbot transcripts. We are trying to capture the user state information (user name, account number, account type, etc) as top level attributes in the transcript so that specific customers can easily be queried in the DB (if that information is just in the individual timestamp attributes of the document, they can't be queried).
Ideally I would just add the user state when I'm building the file, but I can't figure any way to access it since the logger is defined in index.js and TranscriptLoggerMiddleware only provides the activity to my function, not the full context. If anyone has a way to get the user state data via TranscriptLoggerMiddleware, let me know, that would solve this issue. Here is the customLogger code. Note that due to the function receiving both the user query and bot response, I couldn't get retrieving and resaving the transcript to work, so I'm overwriting the transcript from a local log object. Not trying to come up with a new approach here but if one would solve the overall issue I'd like to hear it.
// Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
// Licensed under the MIT License.
const { CosmosDbPartitionedStorage } = require('botbuilder-azure');
const path = require('path');
/**
* CustomLogger, takes in an activity and saves it for the duration of the conversation, writing to an emulator compatible transcript file in the transcriptsPath folder.
*/
class CustomLogger {
/**
* Log an activity to the log file.
* #param activity Activity being logged.
*/
// Set up Cosmos Storage
constructor(appInsightsClient) {
this.transcriptStorage = new CosmosDbPartitionedStorage({
cosmosDbEndpoint: process.env.COSMOS_SERVICE_ENDPOINT,
authKey: process.env.COSMOS_AUTH_KEY,
databaseId: process.env.DATABASE,
containerId: 'bot-transcripts'
});
this.conversationLogger = {};
this.appInsightsClient = appInsightsClient;
this.msDelay = 250;
}
async logActivity(activity) {
if (!activity) {
throw new Error('Activity is required.');
}
// Log only if this is type message
if (activity.type === 'message') {
if (activity.attachments) {
try {
var logTextDb = `${activity.from.name}: ${activity.attachments[0].content.text}`;
} catch (err) {
var logTextDb = `${activity.from.name}: ${activity.text}`;
}
} else {
var logTextDb = `${activity.from.name}: ${activity.text}`;
}
if (activity.conversation) {
var id = activity.conversation.id;
if (id.indexOf('|') !== -1) {
id = activity.conversation.id.replace(/\|.*/, '');
}
// Get today's date for datestamp
var currentDate = new Date();
var day = currentDate.getDate();
var month = currentDate.getMonth()+1;
var year = currentDate.getFullYear();
var datestamp = year + '-' + month + '-' + day;
var fileName = `${datestamp}_${id}`;
var timestamp = Math.floor(Date.now()/1);
// CosmosDB logging (JK)
if (!(fileName in this.conversationLogger)) {
this.conversationLogger[fileName] = {};
this.conversationLogger[fileName]['userData'] = {};
this.conversationLogger[fileName]['botName'] = process.env.BOTNAME;
}
this.conversationLogger[fileName][timestamp] = logTextDb;
let updateObj = {
[fileName]:{
...this.conversationLogger[fileName]
}
}
// Add delay to ensure messages logged sequentially
await this.wait(this.msDelay);
try {
let result = await this.transcriptStorage.write(updateObj);
} catch(err) {
console.log(err);
this.appInsightsClient.trackTrace({message: `Logger Error ${err.code} - ${path.basename(__filename)}`,severity: 3,properties: {'botName': process.env.BOTNAME, 'error':err.body}});
}
}
}
}
async wait(milliseconds) {
var start = new Date().getTime();
for (var i = 0; i < 1e7; i++) {
if ((new Date().getTime() - start) > milliseconds) {
break;
}
}
}
}
exports.CustomLogger = CustomLogger;
Not being able to get user state in this function, I decided to try a few other approaches. The most promising was creating a separate "updateTranscript" function to grab the transcript, add user state, and save it back. But I think it was catching it only on user request and getting overidden again by local object on bot response. I added a delay to try to combat this, but it still didn't work. On my very first prompt of providing customer number user state data is getting stored on transcript, but at the next activity it is gone and never comes back (even though I can see it is supposedly getting written to DB). Here is that update function.
const { CosmosDbStorage } = require('botbuilder-azure');
var updateTranscript = async (context, userData, appInsightsClient) => {
const transcriptStorage = new CosmosDbStorage({
serviceEndpoint: process.env.COSMOS_SERVICE_ENDPOINT,
authKey: process.env.COSMOS_AUTH_KEY,
databaseId: process.env.DATABASE,
collectionId: 'bot-transcripts',
partitionKey: process.env.BOTNAME
});
var id = context.activity.conversation.id;
if (id.indexOf('|') !== -1) {
id = context.activity.conversation.id.replace(/\|.*/, '');
}
// Get today's date for datestamp
var currentDate = new Date();
var day = currentDate.getDate();
var month = currentDate.getMonth()+1;
var year = currentDate.getFullYear();
var datestamp = year + '-' + month + '-' + day;
var filename = `${datestamp}_${id}`;
var msDelay = 500;
await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, msDelay));
var transcript = await transcriptStorage.read([filename]);
transcript[filename]['userData'] = userData
try {
await transcriptStorage.write(transcript);
console.log('User data added to transcript');
} catch(err) {
console.log(err);
appInsightsClient.trackTrace({message: `Log Updater Error ${err.code} - ${path.basename(__filename)}`,severity: 3,properties: {'botName': process.env.BOTNAME, 'error':err.body}});
}
return;
}
module.exports.updateTranscript = updateTranscript
I realize this approach is a bit of a cluster but I've been unable to find anything better. I know the Microsoft COVID-19 bot has a really nice transcript retrieval function, but I haven't been able to get any input from them on how that was accomplished. That aside, I'm quite happy to continue with this implementation if someone can help me figure out how to get that user state into the transcript without being overwritten or running into concurrency issues.
As to why I can't query an account number even via substring() function, here's an example of the documents data object. I have no idea which string to check for a substring, in this case 122809. I don't know what that timestamp could be. If this is stored at the top level (e.g. userData/accountNumber) I know exactly where to look for the value. For further context, I've displayed what I see after the first prompt for account number, where userData is populated. But it gets overidden on subsequent writes and I can't seem to get it back even with a delay in my updateTranscript function.
"document": {
"userData": {},
"botName": "AveryCreek_OEM_CSC_Bot_QA",
"1594745997562": "AveryCreek_OEM_CSC_Bot_QA: Hi! I'm the OEM CSC Support Bot! Before we get started, can you please provide me with your 6-digit Vista number? If you don't have one, just type \"Skip\".",
"1594746003973": "You: 122809",
"1594746004241": "AveryCreek_OEM_CSC_Bot_QA: Thank you. What can I help you with today? \r\nYou can say **Menu** for a list of common commands, **Help** for chatbot tips, or choose one of the frequent actions below. \r\n \r\n I'm still being tested, so please use our [Feedback Form](https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=lVxS1ga5GkO5Jum1G6Q8xHnUJxcBMMdAqVUeyOmrhgBUNFI3VEhMU1laV1YwMUdFTkhYVzcwWk9DMiQlQCN0PWcu) to let us know how well I'm doing and how I can be improved!",
"1594746011384": "You: what is my account number?",
"1594746011652": "AveryCreek_OEM_CSC_Bot_QA: Here is the informaiton I have stored: \n \n**Account Number:** 122809 \n\n I will forget everything except your account number after the end of this conversation.",
"1594746011920": "AveryCreek_OEM_CSC_Bot_QA: I can clear your information if you don't want me to store it or if you want to reneter it. Would you like me to clear your information now?",
"1594746016034": "You: no",
"1594746016301": "AveryCreek_OEM_CSC_Bot_QA: OK, I won't clear your information. You can ask again at any time."
},
"document": {
"userData": {
"accountNumber": "122809"
},
"botName": "AveryCreek_OEM_CSC_Bot_QA",
"1594746019952": "AveryCreek_OEM_CSC_Bot_QA: Hi! I'm the OEM CSC Support Bot! What can I help you with today? \r\nYou can say **Menu** for a list of common commands, **Help** for chatbot tips, or choose one of the frequent actions below. \r\n \r\n I'm still being tested, so please use our [Feedback Form](https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=lVxS1ga5GkO5Jum1G6Q8xHnUJxcBMMdAqVUeyOmrhgBUNFI3VEhMU1laV1YwMUdFTkhYVzcwWk9DMiQlQCN0PWcu) to let us know how well I'm doing and how I can be improved!"
},

You had said you were encountering concurrency issues even though JavaScript is single-threaded. As strange as that sounds, I think you're right on some level. TranscriptLoggerMiddleware does have its own buffer that it uses to store activities throughout the turn and then it tries to log all of them all at once. It could easily have provided a way to get that whole buffer in your own logger function, but instead it just loops through the buffer so that you still only get to log them each individually. Also, it allows logActivity to return a promise but it never awaits it, so each activity will get logged "simultaneously" (it's not really simultaneous but the code will likely jump between function calls before waiting for them to complete). This is a problem for any operation that isn't atomic, because you'll be modifying state without knowing about its latest modifications.
while (transcript.length > 0) {
try {
const activity: Activity = transcript.shift();
// If the implementation of this.logger.logActivity() is asynchronous, we don't
// await it as to not block processing of activities.
// Because TranscriptLogger.logActivity() returns void or Promise<void>, we capture
// the result and see if it is a Promise.
const logActivityResult = this.logger.logActivity(activity);
// If this.logger.logActivity() returns a Promise, a catch is added in case there
// is no innate error handling in the method. This catch prevents
// UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarnings from being thrown and prints the error to the
// console.
if (logActivityResult instanceof Promise) {
logActivityResult.catch(err => {
this.transcriptLoggerErrorHandler(err);
});
}
} catch (err) {
this.transcriptLoggerErrorHandler(err);
}
}
All in all, I don't think transcript logger middleware is the way to go here. While it may purport to serve your purposes, there are just too many problems with it. I would either write my own middleware or just put the middleware code directly in my bot logic like this:
async onTurn(turnContext) {
const activity = turnContext.activity;
await this.logActivity(turnContext, activity);
turnContext.onSendActivities(async (ctx, activities, next) => {
for (const activity of activities) {
await this.logActivity(ctx, activity);
}
return await next();
});
// Bot code here
// Save state changes
await this.userState.saveChanges(turnContext);
}
async logActivity(turnContext, activity) {
var transcript = await this.transcriptProperty.get(turnContext, []);
transcript.push(activity);
await this.transcriptProperty.set(turnContext, transcript);
console.log('Activities saved: ' + transcript.length);
}
Since your transcript would be stored in your user state, that user state would also have the account number you need and hopefully you'd be able to query for it.

Kyle's answer did help me solve the issue, and I think that will be the most reusable piece for anyone experiencing similar issues. The key takeaway is that, if you're using nodejs, you should not be using TranscriptLoggerMiddleware and instead use Kyle's function in your onTurn handler (repeated here for reference):
// Function provided by Kyle Delaney
async onTurn(turnContext) {
const activity = turnContext.activity;
await this.logActivity(turnContext, activity);
turnContext.onSendActivities(async (ctx, activities, next) => {
for (const activity of activities) {
await this.logActivity(ctx, activity);
}
return await next();
});
// Bot code here
// Save state changes
await this.userState.saveChanges(turnContext);
}
You need to note, though, that his logActivity function is just storing the raw activities to the user state using a custom transcriptProperty. As of yet I haven't found a good method to give business/admin users access to this data in a way that is easily readable and searchable, nor construct some sort of file out output to send to a customer requesting a transcript of their conversation. As such, I continued using my CustomLogger instead. Here is how I accomplished that.
First, you must create the transcriptLogger in the constructor. If you create it inside your turn handler, you will lose the cache/buffer and it will only have the latest activity instead of the full history. May be common sense but this tripped me up briefly. I do this in the constructor via this.transcriptLogger = new CustomerLogger(appInsightsClient);. I also modified my logActivity function to accept the userData (my state object) as a second, optional parameter. I have successfully been able to use that userData object to add the required customer information to the bot transcript. To modify Kyle's function above you just need to replace this.logActivity with your function call, in my case this.transcriptLogger.logActivity(context, userData);.
While there are still some other issues with this approach, it does solve the title question of how to get user state data into the transcript.

Doesn't add records into PouchDB when used same function over again

I'm trying to create a database with "users" and their data in it. Strangely it doesn't put() new variables in it when I try to for the third time. To do all this I create a local database dblocal and replicate this DB to the remote db called dbremote. At first I create a document with one variable.
function newuser() {
if (window.document.consent_form.consent_to_share.value) {
var id = "p" + Date.now() + "-" + Math.floor(Math.random() * 10000);
var dblocal = new PouchDB(id);
var consenttoshare = window.document.consent_form.consent_to_share.value;
document.cookie = id;
var dbremote = 'http://localhost:5984/experiment';
dblocal.put({
_id: id,
consent: consenttoshare
});
dblocal.replicate.to(dbremote, {live: true});
}
}
This all worked well, in another js file I'm trying to add a variable to the same document by executing the following function putdb(). Im doing this in the following way (as said in their documentation is the right way):
function putdb () {
if (document.cookie){
var id = document.cookie;
var loggedin = "True";
var dblocal = new PouchDB(id);
dblocal.get(id).then(function (doc) {
doc.loggedin = loggedin;
return dblocal.put(doc);
}).then(function () {
return dblocal.get(id);
}).then(function (doc) {
console.log(doc);
var dbremote = 'http://localhost:5984/experiment';
dblocal.replicate.to(dbremote, {live: true});
});
}
}
This succesfully added the variable loggedin to the document as I wanted. However upon trying to add information to this document for the third time (again in another js file), nothing happens. I used exactly the same approach as before but only use different variables.
function putdb (checked) {
if (document.cookie) {
var id = document.cookie;
var checkedlist = [];
for (i = 0; i < checked; i++) {
checkedlist.push($("input[type=checkbox]:checked")[i].value)
}
var playlistname = document.getElementById("playlistname").value;
var dblocal = new PouchDB(id);
dblocal.get(id).then(function (doc) {
doc.checkedlist = checkedlist;
doc.playlistname = playlistname;
return dblocal.put(doc);
}).then(function () {
return dblocal.get(id);
}).then(function (doc) {
console.log(doc);
var dbremote = 'http://localhost:5984/experiment';
dblocal.replicate.to(dbremote, {live: true});
});
}
}
I checked all variables, they are correct.
I tried plain text variables.
The script does run.
I tried to add information to the document the way I did the first time.
None of all this seems to add another variable to the document as I wanted in the last function. I think it has to do with the way pouchDB works which I don't know. help is much appreciated!

There are a number of problems in your code that results in bad usage of PouchDB, and may lead to problems.
First of all, it does not make a lot of sense to give your document the same id as the name of your database. Assuming you want a one database per user approach, there are two approaches you can follow.
Multiple document approach
You can instead make multiple documents within the same database with different id's. For instance, your 'consent' information may be stored like this:
var id = "p" + Date.now() + "-" + Math.floor(Math.random() * 10000);
let dblocal = new PouchDB(id);
document.cookie = id;
let dbremote = 'http://localhost:5984/experiment';
dblocal.put({
_id: "consent",
consent: window.document.consent_form.consent_to_share.value
});
dblocal.replicate.to(dbremote, {live: true});
While your playlist information is stored like this:
dblocal.put({
_id: "playlist",
name: playlistname,
itemsChecked: checkedlist
});
Single-document approach
The second option is to store a single document containing all the information you want to store that is associated to a user. In this approach you will want to fetch the existing document and update it when there is new information. Assuming you named your document global-state (i.e. replace "consent" in the first code snippet with "global-state"), the following code will update a document:
dblocal.get("global-state").then((doc)=>{
doc.loggedIn = true; // or change any other information you want
return dblocal.put(doc);
}).then((response)=>{
//handle response
}).catch((err)=>{
console.log(err);
});
Furthermore, you should only call the
dblocal.replicate.to(dbremote, {live: true});
function once because the 'live' option specifies that future changes will automatically be replicated to the remote database.

MongoDB - Mongoose - TypeError: save is not a function

I am attempting to perform an update to a MongoDB document (using mongoose) by first using .findById to get the document, then updating the fields in that document with new values. I am still a bit new to this so I used a tutorial to figure out how to get it working, then I have been updating my code for my needs. Here is the tutorial: MEAN App Tutorial with Angular 4. The original code had a schema defined, but my requirement is for a generic MongoDB interface that will simply take whatever payload is sent to it and send it along to MongoDB. The original tutorial had something like this:
exports.updateTodo = async function(todo){
var id = todo.id
try{
//Find the old Todo Object by the Id
var oldTodo = await ToDo.findById(id);
}catch(e){
throw Error("Error occured while Finding the Todo")
}
// If no old Todo Object exists return false
if(!oldTodo){
return false;
}
console.log(oldTodo)
//Edit the Todo Object
oldTodo.title = todo.title
oldTodo.description = todo.description
oldTodo.status = todo.status
console.log(oldTodo)
try{
var savedTodo = await oldTodo.save()
return savedTodo;
}catch(e){
throw Error("And Error occured while updating the Todo");
}
}
However, since I don't want a schema and want to allow anything through, I don't want to assign static values to specific field names like, title, description, status, etc. So, I came up with this:
exports.updateData = async function(update){
var id = update.id
// Check the existence of the query parameters, If they don't exist then assign a default value
var dbName = update.dbName ? update.dbName : 'test'
var collection = update.collection ? update.collection : 'testing';
const Test = mongoose.model(dbName, TestSchema, collection);
try{
//Find the existing Test object by the Id
var existingData = await Test.findById(id);
}catch(e){
throw Error("Error occurred while finding the Test document - " + e)
}
// If no existing Test object exists return false
if(!existingData){
return false;
}
console.log("Existing document is " + existingData)
//Edit the Test object
existingData = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(update))
//This was another way to overwrite existing field values, but
//performs a "shallow copy" so it's not desireable
//existingData = Object.assign({}, existingData, update)
//existingData.title = update.title
//existingData.description = update.description
//existingData.status = update.status
console.log("New data is " + existingData)
try{
var savedOutput = await existingData.save()
return savedOutput;
}catch(e){
throw Error("An error occurred while updating the Test document - " + e);
}
}
My original problem with this was that I had a lot of issues getting the new values to overwrite the old ones. Now that that's been solved, I am getting the error of "TypeError: existingData.save is not a function". I am thinking the data type changed or something, and now it is not being accepted. When I uncomment the static values that were in the old tutorial code, it works. This is further supported by my console logging before and after I join the objects, because the first one prints the actual data and the second one prints [object Object]. However, I can't seem to figure out what it's expecting. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT: I figured it out. Apparently Mongoose has its own data type of "Model" which gets changed if you do anything crazy to the underlying data by using things like JSON.stringify. I used Object.prototype.constructor to figure out the actual object type like so:
console.log("THIS IS BEFORE: " + existingData.constructor);
existingData = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(update));
console.log("THIS IS AFTER: " + existingData.constructor);
And I got this:
THIS IS BEFORE: function model(doc, fields, skipId) {
model.hooks.execPreSync('createModel', doc);
if (!(this instanceof model)) {
return new model(doc, fields, skipId);
}
Model.call(this, doc, fields, skipId);
}
THIS IS AFTER: function Object() { [native code] }
Which showed me what was actually going on. I added this to fix it:
existingData = new Test(JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(update)));
On a related note, I should probably just use the native MongoDB driver at this point, but it's working, so I'll just put it on my to do list for now.

You've now found a solution but I would suggest using the MongoDB driver which would make your code look something along the lines of this and would make the origional issue disappear:
// MongoDB Settings
const MongoClient = require(`mongodb`).MongoClient;
const mongodb_uri = `mongodb+srv://${REPLACE_mongodb_username}:${REPLACE_mongodb_password}#url-here.gcp.mongodb.net/test`;
const db_name = `test`;
let db; // allows us to reuse the database connection once it is opened
// Open MongoDB Connection
const open_database_connection = async () => {
try {
client = await MongoClient.connect(mongodb_uri);
} catch (err) { throw new Error(err); }
db = client.db(db_name);
};
exports.updateData = async update => {
// open database connection if it isn't already open
try {
if (!db) await open_database_connection();
} catch (err) { throw new Error(err); }
// update document
let savedOutput;
try {
savedOutput = await db.collection(`testing`).updateOne( // .save() is being depreciated
{ // filter
_id: update.id // the '_id' might need to be 'id' depending on how you have set your collection up, usually it is '_id'
},
$set: { // I've assumed that you are overwriting the fields you are updating hence the '$set' operator
update // update here - this is assuming that the update object only contains fields that should be updated
}
// If you want to add a new document if the id isn't found add the below line
// ,{ upsert: true }
);
} catch (err) { throw new Error(`An error occurred while updating the Test document - ${err}`); }
if (savedOutput.matchedCount !== 1) return false; // if you add in '{ upsert: true }' above, then remove this line as it will create a new document
return savedOutput;
}
The collection testing would need to be created before this code but this is only a one-time thing and is very easy - if you are using MongoDB Atlas then you can use MongoDB Compass / go in your online admin to create the collection without a single line of code...
As far as I can see you should need to duplicate the update object. The above reduces the database calls from 2 to one and allows you to reuse the database connection, potentially anywhere else in the application which would help to speed things up. Also don't store your MongoDB credentials directly in the code.

Instagram API - paging through 'new' posts

So I'm using node.js and the module instagram-node-lib to download metadata for Instagram posts. I have a couple of hashtags that I want to search for, and I want to download all existing posts (handling request failure during pagination) as well as monitor all new posts.
I have managed to crack the first part - downloading all existing posts and handling failure (I noticed that sometimes the Instagram API would just fail on me, so I've added redundancy to remember the last successful page I downloaded and attempt again from that point). For anyone who is interested, here is my code (note, I use Postgres to save the posts, and I've abbreviated/obfuscated some of the code for ease of reading and for commercial purposes) **apologies for the length of code, but I think this will come in useful to someone:
var db = new (require('./postgres'))
,api = require("instagram-node-lib")
;
var HASHTAGS = ["fluffy", "kittens"] //this is just an example!
,CLIENT_ID = "YOUR_CLIENT_ID"
,CLIENT_SECRET = "YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET"
,HOST = "https://api.instagram.com"
,PORT = 443
,PATH = "/v1/media/popular?client_id=" + CLIENT_ID
;
var hashtagIndex = 0
,settings
;
/**
* Initialise the module for use
*/
exports.initialise = function(){
api.set("client_id", CLIENT_ID);
api.set("client_secret", CLIENT_SECRET);
if( !settings){
settings = {
hashtags: []
}
for( var i in HASHTAGS){
settings.hashtags[i] = {
name: HASHTAGS[i],
maxTagId: null,
minTagId: null,
nextMaxTagId: null,
}
}
}
// console.log(settings);
db.initialiseSettings(); //I haven't included the code for this - basically just loads settings from the database, overwriting the defaults above if they exist, otherwise it creates them using the above object. I store the settings as a JSON object in the DB and parse them on load
execute();
}
function execute(){
var params = {
name: HASHTAGS[hashtagIndex],
complete: function(data, pagination){
var hashtag = settings.hashtags[hashtagIndex];
//from scratch
if( !hashtag.maxTagId){
console.log('Downloading old posts from scratch');
getOldPosts();
}
//still loading old (previously failed)
else if( hashtag.nextMaxTagId){
console.log('Downloading old posts from last saved position');
getOldPosts(hashtag.nextMaxTagId);
}
//new posts only
else {
console.log('Downloading new posts only');
getNewPosts(hashtag.minTagId);
}
},
error: function(msg, obj, caller){
apiError(msg, obj, caller);
}
}
api.tags.info(params);
}
function getOldPosts(maxTagId){
console.log();
var params = {
name: HASHTAGS[hashtagIndex],
count: 100,
max_tag_id: maxTagId || undefined,
complete: function(data, pagination){
console.log(pagination);
var hashtag = settings.hashtags[hashtagIndex];
//reached the end
if( pagination.next_max_tag_id == hashtag.maxTagId){
console.log('Downloaded all posts for #' + HASHTAGS[hashtagIndex]);
hashtag.nextMaxTagId = null; //reset nextMaxTagId - that way next time we execute the script we know to just look for new posts
saveSettings(function(){
next();
}); //Another function I haven't include - just saves the settings object, overwriting what is in the database. Once saved, executes the next() function
}
else {
//from scratch
if( !hashtag.maxTagId){
//these values will be saved once all posts in this batch have been saved. We set these only once, meaning that we have a baseline to compare to - enabling us to determine if we have reached the end of pagination
hashtag.maxTagId = pagination.next_max_tag_id;
hashtag.minTagId = pagination.min_tag_id;
}
//if there is a failure then we know where to start from - this is only saved to the database once the posts are successfully saved to database
hashtag.nextMaxTagId = pagination.next_max_tag_id;
//again, another function not included. saves the posts to database, then updates the settings. Once they have completed we get the next page of data
db.savePosts(data, function(){
saveSettings(function(){
getOldPosts(hashtag.nextMaxTagId);
});
});
}
},
error: function(msg, obj, caller){
apiError(msg, obj, caller);
//keep calm and try again - this is our failure redundancy
execute();
}
}
var posts = api.tags.recent(params);
}
/**
* Still to be completed!
*/
function getNewPosts(minTagId){
}
function next(){
if( hashtagIndex < HASHTAGS.length - 1){
console.log("Moving onto the next hashtag...");
hashtagIndex++;
execute();
}
else {
console.log("All hashtags processed...");
}
}
Ok so here is my dilema about solving the next piece of the puzzle - downloading new posts (in other words, only those new posts that have come into existence since I last downloaded all the posts). Should I use Instagram subscriptions or is there a way to implement paging similar to what I've already used? I'm worried that if I use the former solution then if there is a problem with my server and it goes down for a period of time then I will miss out on some posts. I' worried that if I use the latter solution then it might not be possible to page through the records, because is the Instagram API set up to enable forward paging rather than backward paging?
I've attempted to post questions in the Google Instagram API Developers Group a couple of times and none of my messages seem to be appearing in the forum so I thought I'd resort to trusty stackoverflow

How do I update data in indexedDB?

I have tried to get some information from W3C regarding the update of an objectStore item in a indexedDB database, but with not so much susccess.
I found here a way to do it, but it doesn't really work for me.
My implementation is something like this
DBM.activitati.edit = function(id, obj, callback){
var transaction = DBM.db.transaction(["activitati"], IDBTransaction.READ_WRITE);
var objectStore = transaction.objectStore("activitati");
var keyRange = IDBKeyRange.only(id);
objCursor = objectStore.openCursor(keyRange);
objCursor.onsuccess = function(e){
var cursor = e.target.result;
console.log(obj);
var request = cursor.update(obj);
request.onsuccess = function(){
callback();
}
request.onerror = function(e){
conosole.log("DBM.activitati.edit -> error " + e);
}
}
objCursor.onerror = function(e){
conosole.log("DBM.activitati.edit -> error " + e);
}
}
I have all DBM.activitati.(add | remove | getAll | getById | getByIndex) methods working, but I can not resolve this.
If you know how I can manage it, please, do tell!
Thank you!

Check out this jsfiddle for some examples on how to update IDB records. I worked on that with another StackOverflower -- it's a pretty decent standalone example of IndexedDB that uses indexes and does updates.
The method you seem to be looking for is put, which will either insert or update a record if there are unique indexes. In that example fiddle, it's used like this:
phodaDB.indexedDB.addUser = function(userObject){
//console.log('adding entry: '+entryTxt);
var db = phodaDB.indexedDB.db;
var trans = db.transaction(["userData"],IDBTransaction.READ_WRITE);
var store = trans.objectStore("userData");
var request = store.put(userObject);
request.onsuccess = function(e){
phodaDB.indexedDB.getAllEntries();
};
request.onerror = function(e){
console.log('Error adding: '+e);
};
};
For what it's worth, you've got some possible syntax errors, misspelling "console" in console.log as "conosole".

A bit late for an answer, but possible it helps others. I still stumbled -as i guess- over the same problem, but it's very simple:
If you want to INSERT or UPDATE records you use objectStore.put(object) (help)
If you only want to INSERT records you use objectStore.add(object) (help)
So if you use add(object), and a record key still exists in DB, it will not overwritten and fires error 0 "ConstraintError: Key already exists in the object store".
If you use put(object), it will be overwritten.

this is case of update infos of an user object
var transaction = db.transaction(["tab_user"], "readwrite");
var store = transaction.objectStore("tab_user");
var req = store.openCursor();
req.onerror = function(event) {
console.log("case if have an error");
};
req.onsuccess = function(event) {
var cursor = event.target.result;
if(cursor){
if(cursor.value.idUser == users.idUser){//we find by id an user we want to update
var user = {};
user.idUser = users.idUser ;
user.nom = users.nom ;
var res = cursor.update(user);
res.onsuccess = function(e){
console.log("update success!!");
}
res.onerror = function(e){
console.log("update failed!!");
}
}
cursor.continue();
}
else{
console.log("fin mise a jour");
}
}

I'm a couple of years late, but thought it'd be nice to add my two cents in.
First, check out BakedGoods if you don't want to deal with the complex IndexedDB API.
It's a library which establishes a uniform interface that can be used to conduct storage operations in all native, and some non-native client storage facilities. It also maintains the flexibility and options afforded to the user by each. Oh, and it's maintained by yours truly :) .
With it, placing one or more data items in an object store can be as simple as:
bakedGoods.set({
data: [{key: "key1", value: "value1"}, {key: "key2", value: "value2"}),
storageTypes: ["indexedDB"],
complete: function(byStorageTypeResultDataObj, byStorageTypeErrorObj){}
});
Now to answer the actual question...
Lets begin by aggregating the valuable information spread across the existing answers:
IDBObjectStore.put() adds a new record to the store, or updates an existing one
IDBObjectStore.add() adds a new record to the store
IDBCursor.update() updates the record at the current position of the cursor
As one can see, OP is using an appropriate method to update a record. There are, however, several things in his/her code, unrelated to the method, that are incorrect (with respect to the API today at least). I've identified and corrected them below:
var cursorRequest = objectStore.openCursor(keyRange); //Correctly define result as request
cursorRequest.onsuccess = function(e){ //Correctly set onsuccess for request
var objCursor = cursorRequest.result; //Get cursor from request
var obj = objCursor.value; //Get value from existing cursor ref
console.log(obj);
var request = objCursor.update(obj);
request.onsuccess = function(){
callback();
}
request.onerror = function(e){
console.log("DBM.activitati.edit -> error " + e); //Use "console" to log :)
}
}
cursorRequest.onerror = function(e){ //Correctly set onerror for request
console.log("DBM.activitati.edit -> error " + e); //Use "console" to log :)
}