Conductor error - where to get help?

macOS
,
1

I installed Conductor (by @sylumer), the Keyboard Maestro controller but I’m getting an error when I invoke the workflow by typing km [space]. The workflow comes up at km and the diagnostics command works and shows that everything is good there. I wasn’t sure where to go for help so I came here. Below is the error:

[09:44:44.519] ERROR: Conductor[Script Filter] JSON error: JSON text did not start with array or object and option to allow fragments not set. around line 1, column 0. in JSON:

I’m wondering if a fault when handling certain unicode characters because the error message above continues on by listing out my entire KM library until it gets to a Macro I made that inserts some a list of symbols. Naturally, those symbols are the title of the KM macro.

Here’s a portion of the log starting just before the error entry:

{"title": "\u2474\u2475\u2476\u2477\u2478\u2479\u247a\u247b\u247c\u247d\u247e\u247f\u2480\u2481\u2482\u2483\u2484\u2485\u2486\u2487", "subtitle": "\ud83e\uddd4\ud83c\udffb\u2219\ud83c\udf0e \ud83d\udee0Text Expansions\ud83c\udf3f,,\ud83c\udf3f.\ud83c\udf3fSymbols syncable (8A28A61D-FCFC-4225-A1A2-3B5BA9C46B05)", "arg": "8A28A61D-FCFC-4225-A1A2-3B5BA9C46B05"}, {"title": "\u2488\u2489\u248a\u248b\u248c\u248d\u248e\u248f\u249 [truncated]

Decoded, that is indicating that the previous entry was:

  • title: ⑴ ⑵ ⑶ ⑷ ⑸ ⑹ ⑺ ⑻ ⑼ ⑽ ⑾ ⑿ ⒀ ⒁ ⒂ ⒃ ⒄ ⒅ ⒆ ⒇
  • group: :bearded_person:t2:∙:earth_americas: :hammer_and_wrench:Text Expansions​:herb:,:herb:.:herb:Symbols syncable
  • id: 8A28A61D-FCFC-4225-A1A2-3B5BA9C46B05

It truncates the entry for the next macro inside the title field at the final character of the unicode codepoint U+2490 which is ⒐ That macro is:

  • title: ⒈⒉⒊⒋⒌⒍⒎⒏⒐⒑⒒⒓⒔⒕⒖⒗⒘⒙⒚⒛
  • group: :bearded_person:t2:∙:earth_americas: :hammer_and_wrench:Text Expansions​:herb:,:herb:.:herb:Symbols syncable

I disabled that whole group and reran the conductor command but it errored again in the middle of a macro with emojis and symbols. That said, all my groups and many of my titles are like this so the problem may not be specific to where the error message truncated.

Any ideas?

2

Happy to try and help resolve the issue, and thanks for flagging it up.

I have set up a Keyboard Maestro group and macro as per your example names; or at least I think I have :upside_down_face:

2023-07-05-22.29.26@2x
2023-07-05-22.29.26@2x2150×1078 204 KB

When I enter the name, it is found by the search in Alfred.

2023-07-05-22.11.44@2x
2023-07-05-22.11.44@2x1182×250 64.3 KB

When selected, the macro is then executed.

2023-07-05-22.12.42@2x
2023-07-05-22.12.42@2x1074×286 45.1 KB

Selection and execution are the same for the second macro too.

2023-07-05-22.32.42@2x
2023-07-05-22.32.42@2x1184×252 61.3 KB

This suggests to me, assuming I translated your details correctly to my Mac, that the example macros as listed are not causing the issue. But, as do you, I think there is a good chance some macro name is causing the underlying script to generate some bad data, which Alfred then cannot interpret.

Alfred uses JSON structured data to populate the listing, and I’ve used some Python scripts to generate those lists. Now, the km keyword is retrieving active macros. The active status is determined not only by the status of an individual macro, but also the status of a macro group.

I would therefore like to suggest that you do a systematic disabling of macros by group to help you narrow down group containing a macro triggering a JSON generation error, and then you can disable actions to help you track down a particular macro. Hopefully, this will lead you to a culprit, and just to note, that as you eluded to, there could be multiple macros that cause this.

I don’t know how many groups and macros you have, but personally I would disable everything and then slowly reenable by group and then drill down and repeat by macro in the first failing group to quickly identify the trigger. Fortunately, Keyboard Maestro allows you to multi select for enable/disable, so you should be able to manage that relatively quickly for large volumes … its just if you have large volumes it may take you a while to drill into a long list (binary searching might help speed the search too ;-))

I realise that’s not a solution, but given I couldn’t reproduce the issue, I think a bit more investigation on your side as outlined above is going to be the most expedient approach. Once we know what the cause is, I’ll hopefully be able to apply a fix or workaround of it, but just to set expectations, I may not get a big enough block of time to look in detail at it for a few days.

3

Thank you for the response. I finally got around to trying this out. Deactivating my groups feels like cutting off an arm! :slight_smile:

Here is the error that I get when I have all groups deactivated. The error occurs as soon as Conductor appears in the Alfred results list, as in, before I type a space after km.

[08:45:43.476] Conductor[Script Filter] Queuing argument '(null)'
[08:45:44.443] Conductor[Script Filter] Script with argv '(null)' finished
[08:45:44.449] Conductor[Script Filter] e]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExecae]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExecae]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExeca{"items": []}
[08:45:44.451] ERROR: Conductor[Script Filter] JSON error: JSON text did not start with array or object and option to allow fragments not set. around line 1, column 0. in JSON:
e]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExecae]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExecae]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExeca{"items": []}

And here is the error that I get when I have one group enabled that has a single macro in it.

[08:44:41.118] Conductor[Script Filter] Queuing argument '(null)'
[08:44:42.141] Conductor[Script Filter] Script with argv '(null)' finished
[08:44:42.147] Conductor[Script Filter] e]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExecae]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExecae]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExeca{"items": [{"title": "Roger S'n'R with BBEdit", "subtitle": "Tests (7B17F3D6-DDEA-4757-8166-8CB828033B47)", "arg": "7B17F3D6-DDEA-4757-8166-8CB828033B47"}]}
[08:44:42.149] ERROR: Conductor[Script Filter] JSON error: JSON text did not start with array or object and option to allow fragments not set. around line 1, column 0. in JSON:
e]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExecae]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExecae]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExeca{"items": [{"title": "Roger S'n'R with BBEdit", "subtitle": "Tests (7B17F3D6-DDEA-4757-8166-8CB828033B47)", "arg": "7B17F3D6-DDEA-4757-8166-8CB828033B47"}]}
[08:44:42.284] Conductor[Script Filter] Queuing argument '(null)'
[08:44:43.311] Conductor[Script Filter] Script with argv '(null)' finished
[08:44:43.316] Conductor[Script Filter] e]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExecae]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExecae]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExeca{"items": [{"title": "Roger S'n'R with BBEdit", "subtitle": "Tests (7B17F3D6-DDEA-4757-8166-8CB828033B47)", "arg": "7B17F3D6-DDEA-4757-8166-8CB828033B47"}]}
[08:44:43.317] ERROR: Conductor[Script Filter] JSON error: JSON text did not start with array or object and option to allow fragments not set. around line 1, column 0. in JSON:
e]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExecae]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExecae]697;OSCLock=ae]697;PreExeca{"items": [{"title": "Roger S'n'R with BBEdit", "subtitle": "Tests (7B17F3D6-DDEA-4757-8166-8CB828033B47)", "arg": "7B17F3D6-DDEA-4757-8166-8CB828033B47"}]}
4

I am now going to be limited in time for the next week or two as I am taking some time off to move house - so everything is a bit frantic. But, can I just check that if you have no groups enabled, or enable any of your groups, tou get the same error indicating the bad JSON?

I haven’t had anyone else contact me with such an issue, so right now it feels like it is localised to your setup, and maybe independent of the Keyboard Maestro content if it is erroring no matter what groups are selected or deselected.

Before I start figuring out what debugging I need to develop next to help hone in on this (probably a variation of the script to dump some of that bad JSON out), can I ask you to remove, redownload, and re add the workflow from this link?

This is partially as a just in case some glitch has happened and reinstalling it resolves it, and partially to ensure I have a common starting point for further investigation.

In addition, can you direct message me on the forum with the diagnostics output?

5

Alright, enjoy your time off! This isn’t urgent.

Yes, somehow it wouldn’t surprise me if it was my setup but I have no idea. When I deactivate all my groups I do still get an error (after deleting, downloading, installing afresh). Here it is… (sending as a DM also)


[19:39:07.672] Conductor[Script Filter] Queuing argument '(null)'
[19:39:08.465] Conductor[Script Filter] Script with argv '(null)' finished
[19:39:08.470] Conductor[Script Filter] ]697;OSCLock= ]697;PreExec ]697;OSCLock= ]697;PreExec ]697;OSCLock= ]697;PreExec {"items": []}
[19:39:08.472] ERROR: Conductor[Script Filter] JSON error: JSON text did not start with array or object and option to allow fragments not set. around line 1, column 0. in JSON:
]697;OSCLock= ]697;PreExec ]697;OSCLock= ]697;PreExec ]697;OSCLock= ]697;PreExec {"items": []}