Conversational Core Template: Cannot read property 'content' of undefined

Describe the bug

Creating a new bot with the Conversational Core (preview) template throws the error TypeError Cannot read property 'content' of undefined.

Version

Browser

• Electron distribution
• Chrome
• Safari
• Firefox
• Edge

OS

• macOS
• Windows
• Ubuntu

To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Select New
2. Select the Conversational Core template. Hit Next.
3. Select a directory to store the bot. Next.
4. Watch the loader say Getting template.
5. Watch the loader say Building runtime.

I continued the following, which may provide additional useful (or unrelated) details about a second error:

1. Select Conversational Core from the Examples shortcut
2. Select a directory to store the bot. Next.
3. Get a 500 error.
4. Repeat the first 5 steps to try again
5. Get the same error

Expected behavior

The bot creates using the conversational core template. Composer does not throw the error.

Screenshots

[cwhitten]

Hi @chrisshaw this has been addressed and will be available in a new release.

[pavolum]

@chrisshaw I believe your hypothesis is correct. I remember having similar issue due to blank content in the qna file but we released a new version of the template package that should have resolved this. As far as the dir already exists that seems to be a symptom of the erroneous creation flow leaving files in your dir even though it did not successfully create. Trying a different bot name in creation should result in it not trying to write to the same file again but as you have noted that seems to still throw an error (hypothesis being the empty qna file).

We will be releasing a new version of Composer in the next few weeks. The conversational core functionality has been greatly refactored and enhanced and both the ‘clean up files when creation errors’ and ‘empty qna’ file have been resolved in the new implementation. The new implementation also using local yeomen env generators for templates as opposed to the C# nuget implementation of the preview release you are having issues with.

I recommend we wait for that release and try and reproduce the issue in the updated flow. My hopes are that the large refactor results in resolving this particular issue.

I will leave this issue open and follow up once R12 has gone GA to walk you through the new flow. Then we can validate if this issue still exists in the new implementation and tackle troubleshooting if it does.

Many thanks for your patience and outlining the issue thus far. I have high hopes that the new implementation will resolve the issue and you will be able to create component model templates without a hitch!