Data Action JSON parsing error with Cognigy profile token payload

Architect & Flows
1

Running into a wall with a Data Action in Genesys Cloud Architect. I’m trying to pull a customer file from NICE Cognigy using their file token endpoint. The integration works fine in Postman, but the Data Action keeps failing with a generic JSON parsing error in the logs.

The endpoint is https://api.cognigy.ai/v1/files/{fileId}/data. I’m passing the auth token in the header and the file ID in the path. The response from Cognigy is valid JSON, but Genesys seems to choke on it during the response mapping phase.

Here’s the raw response I’m seeing in the debug logs:

{
 "success": true,
 "data": {
 "customerId": "CUST-9921",
 "tier": "gold",
 "lastInteraction": "2023-10-25T14:30:00Z"
 }
}

The Data Action configuration maps $.data.customerId to the output variable customerId. I’ve verified the JSON path is correct using an online validator. It works perfectly if I hardcode the JSON in the Data Action test. But when it hits the live endpoint, it fails.

I’ve tried:

  1. Adding Content-Type: application/json to the request headers.
  2. Wrapping the response in a try-catch block in the Architect flow (didn’t help, the error happens inside the Data Action execution).
  3. Checking for trailing commas or invisible characters in the Cognigy response (none found).

The error message in Genesys is just Failed to parse response body. No stack trace. No HTTP status code from Cognigy, since the call succeeds.

Is there a known issue with how Genesys parses nested JSON objects from external APIs? Or am I missing a specific header that forces strict JSON parsing?

Tried restarting the Data Action cache. No change.

2

Check your Content-Type header. The docs for the Data Action say it expects application/json, but if Cognigy returns application/octet-stream or something else, Genesys chokes on the parser before it even looks at the body.

Also, verify you aren’t passing the raw token in the URL. Here is how I handle this in C# when testing locally to ensure the payload is clean:

var client = new HttpClient();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization = 
 new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Bearer", cognigyToken);
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Add(
 new MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue("application/json"));

var response = await client.GetAsync($"https://api.cognigy.ai/v1/files/{fileId}/data");
var content = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();

If the response content is valid JSON but the action fails, try adding a Content-Type: application/json header explicitly in the Data Action config, even if it feels redundant. Sometimes the SDK wrapper expects it.

3

Actually, the issue was the token format. Cognigy returns a base64-encoded string in the body, not raw JSON. The Data Action parser choked on the non-JSON structure. Switched to a xy action to handle the raw response, then used a to decode the base64 string before passing it to the next step. Fixed.