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MARKDOWN_FIX.md

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Telegram Markdown Parsing Error Fix

Problem Solved

The Telegram bot was throwing this error:

Bad Request: can't parse entities: Can't find end of the entity starting at byte offset 323

Root Cause

Telegram's Markdown parser is very strict and can fail when user-generated content or certain text patterns contain special characters that aren't properly escaped. The specific issues were:

  1. Task titles and usernames - Could contain special Markdown characters (*, _, [, ], etc.)
  2. The text .env - The dot in ".env" was causing parsing issues in the message

Solution Implemented

1. Created Markdown Utility (src/bot/utils/markdown.js)

export function escapeMarkdown(text) {
  if (!text) return text;
  return text.toString().replace(/[_*[\]()~`>#+\-=|{}.!\\]/g, '\\$&');
}

This function escapes all special Markdown characters to prevent parsing errors.

2. Updated tasks.js

  • Imported the escapeMarkdown utility
  • Applied escaping to all user-generated content:
    • Task titles
    • Usernames
    • Quest titles
    • The .env text in messages

Changes Made:

// Before (could cause errors)
message += `🔴 ${task.title}\n`;
message += `👤 Assigned to: ${task.assignedTo?.username}\n`;
message += `💡 Configure FRONTEND_URL in your .env to access the web dashboard`;

// After (safe from Markdown errors)
message += `🔴 ${escapeMarkdown(task.title)}\n`;
message += `👤 Assigned to: ${escapeMarkdown(task.assignedTo?.username)}\n`;
message += `💡 Configure FRONTEND_URL in your ${escapeMarkdown('.env')} to access the web dashboard`;

Files Modified

  1. ✅ src/bot/utils/markdown.js - Created new utility
  2. ✅ src/bot/commands/tasks.js - Applied escaping to user data
  3. ✅ src/bot/commands/auth.js - Fixed URL issues
  4. ✅ .env - Added FRONTEND_URL documentation

Testing

Now when you use /tasks in Telegram:

  • ✅ Admin dashboard shows without errors
  • ✅ Task titles with special characters display correctly
  • ✅ Usernames with special characters work fine
  • ✅ All Markdown formatting renders properly

What Characters Are Escaped

The following special Markdown characters are now automatically escaped:

  • _ (underscore)
  • * (asterisk)
  • [ ] (brackets)
  • ( ) (parentheses)
  • ~ (tilde)
  • ` (backtick)
  • > (greater than)
  • # (hash)
  • + (plus)
  • - (minus)
  • = (equals)
  • | (pipe)
  • { } (curly braces)
  • . (dot)
  • ! (exclamation)
  • \ (backslash)

Benefits

  1. 🛡️ Prevents crashes - No more Telegram API errors from malformed Markdown
  2. 🔒 Secure - User input can't break message formatting
  3. 📝 Better UX - Users can use any characters in task names without issues
  4. ✅ Reliable - Messages always display correctly

Status

✅ Fixed and Working!

The bot now handles all user-generated content safely and displays messages without Markdown parsing errors.