Need Help Integrating Telegram Bot with Custom Assistant via OpenAI API 🙏

[petr.solovarov]

Hello everyone,

I’m trying to integrate a Telegram bot with a custom assistant I created in OpenAI’s Playground. The assistant is fully configured, and I have its ID: asst_********. I already have the Telegram bot set up, but I can’t get it to work properly with the assistant.

From the documentation, I understand that I need to create a thread (Thread) and run interactions via a Run. I wrote the code with the help of ChatGPT, but there seems to be an error in the syntax or logic, and I can’t figure out what’s wrong.

Issues I’m Facing:

1. On the first message, the bot responds: “Could not get a response from the assistant.”
2. On the second message, it responds: “An error occurred while processing your message. Please try again later.”
3. In the program console, I get the error:
   4.*Error while sending message: Unknown error in HTTP implementation: TypeError('Object of type TextContentBlock is not JSON serializable')**

What I’ve Tried:

• I set up the assistant and ensured the assistant ID is correct.
• The thread seems to be created successfully, but messages do not get processed properly. I suspect there’s an issue with how I’m adding messages or running the thread with the assistant.

Here’s the code I’m currently using (API keys are replaced with ***):

import openai
from openai import OpenAI
from telegram import Update
from telegram.ext import Application, CommandHandler, MessageHandler, ContextTypes
from telegram.ext.filters import TEXT

# OpenAI setup
openai.api_key = "***"
client = OpenAI(api_key=openai.api_key)

# Custom Assistant ID
ASSISTANT_ID = "asst_********"

# Telegram API Key
TELEGRAM_API_KEY = "***"

# Storing threads for each user
user_threads = {}

async def start(update: Update, context: ContextTypes.DEFAULT_TYPE):
    user_id = update.effective_user.id
    try:
        thread = client.beta.threads.create()
        thread_id = thread.id
        user_threads[user_id] = thread_id
    except Exception as e:
        await update.message.reply_text("Could not establish a connection with the assistant. Please try again later.")
        print(f"Error creating thread: {e}")

async def handle_message(update: Update, context: ContextTypes.DEFAULT_TYPE):
    user_id = update.effective_user.id
    user_message = update.message.text
    if user_id not in user_threads:
        await update.message.reply_text("Please start with the /start command.")
        return

    thread_id = user_threads[user_id]

    try:
        client.beta.threads.messages.create(thread_id=thread_id, role="user", content=user_message)
        client.beta.threads.runs.create(thread_id=thread_id, assistant_id=ASSISTANT_ID)
        messages = client.beta.threads.messages.list(thread_id=thread_id)
        assistant_response = next((msg.content for msg in messages if msg.role == 'assistant'), "Could not get a response from the assistant.")
        await update.message.reply_text(assistant_response)
    except Exception as e:
        await update.message.reply_text("An error occurred while processing your message. Please try again later.")
        print(f"Error while sending message: {e}")

def main():
    app = Application.builder().token(TELEGRAM_API_KEY).build()
    app.add_handler(CommandHandler("start", start))
    app.add_handler(MessageHandler(TEXT, handle_message))
    app.run_polling()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()