error when receiving POST messages from my PWS

[DOSprojects]

What happened?

Receiving data from my PWS (personal weather station) gives an error

2026-03-14 11:18:00.250597 ERROR AppDaemon: ------------------------------------------------------------
2026-03-14 11:18:00.250953 ERROR AppDaemon: Unexpected error during API call
2026-03-14 11:18:00.251287 ERROR AppDaemon: ------------------------------------------------------------
2026-03-14 11:18:00.252903 ERROR AppDaemon: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/appdaemon/http.py", line 887, in call_app_endpoint
    ret, code = await self.dispatch_app_endpoint(endpoint, request)
    ^^^^^^^^^
ValueError: not enough values to unpack (expected 2, got 0)

2026-03-14 11:18:00.253242 ERROR AppDaemon: ------------------------------------------------------------

Analysis of the messages the PWS pushes:
headers: "rawHeaders":["HOST","","Connection","Close","Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded","Content-Length","474"]
data: {"PASSKEY":"xxxxxxxxxxx","stationtype":"EasyWeatherV1.7.5", "dateutc":"2026-03-11 21:45:28","tempinf":"72.5", ...}

My appdeamon code (just basic):

from typing import Literal
import appdaemon.plugins.hass.hassapi as hass 

class Pws(hass.Hass):
    def initialize(self):
        http_endpoint = self.args.get('http_endpoint', 'pwsdata')
        self.register_endpoint(self._httpHandler, http_endpoint, methods=['POST'])
        self.log(f'Endpoint {http_endpoint} registered', level='INFO')

    def _httpHandler(self, data, **kwargs) -> tuple[dict[str, str], Literal[200]]:
      self.log(f'-------------- Received data --------------')
      self.log(f'data: {data}')
      self.log(f'kwargs: {kwargs}')
      self.log(f'-------------------------------------------')
      #for k,v in data.items():
      #    self.log(f'arg: {k}={v}')
      return {'status': 'ok'}, 200

I run appdaemon as docker container. As info: I made the appdeamon code available for my VScode editor:
From the vs terminal run:

docker cp 420_appdaemon:/usr/local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/appdaemon ~/Desktop/docker/athome/420_appdaemon/

then add in this to the docker-compose in volumes:

- ${BASEDIR}appdaemon/appdaemon:/usr/local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/appdaemon

Modified 2 methods in http.py

The first one (call_app_endpoint) is merely cosmetic:

    @securedata
    # @next-release get requests object in somehow
    async def call_app_endpoint(self, request):
        endpoint = request.match_info.get("endpoint")
        try:
            ret, code = await self.dispatch_app_endpoint(endpoint, request)
        except Exception:
            self.logger.error("-" * 60)
            self.logger.error("Unexpected error during API call")
            self.logger.error(traceback.format_exc())
            self.logger.error("-" * 60)
            return self.get_response(request, 500, "Internal Server Error")
        # Normalize return values; Ensure the body is always JSON-serializable
        if not isinstance(ret, dict):
            ret = {"result": ret}
        # Standardized error handling
        if code == 404:
            return self.get_response(request, 404, "Endpoint not found")
        if code == 500:
            return self.get_response(request, 500, "Internal Server Error")
        # Log success or non-fatal errors
        status_text = "OK" if 200 <= code < 300 else "ERROR"
        self.access.info("API Call to %s: status: %s %s", endpoint, code, status_text)
        # Always return JSON
        return web.json_response(ret, status=code, dumps=utils.convert_json)

But the second (dispatch_app_endpoint) was needed to get my code working.
It uses the header content type to call the appropriate request method.
I'm not an expert, so probably this isn't completely monkey-proof, but it worked for me.
An an extra feature I added an extra argument that can be set in the register_endpoint call.
If return_as_text=True, then the dispatch_app_endpoint function returns a string (and does not look at the header).
This to deal with some poor designed IOT device - interfaces.

    async def dispatch_app_endpoint(self, endpoint, request):
        callback = None
        rargs = {"request": request}
        # Find the endpoint callback
        for name in self.app_endpoints:
            if callback:
                break
            for data in self.app_endpoints.get(name, {}).values():
                if data["endpoint"] == endpoint:
                    callback = data["callback"]
                    rargs.update(data.get("kwargs", {}))
                    break
        # No endpoint found
        if callback is None:
            return self.get_response(request, 404, "Endpoint not found")
        return_as_text = rargs.get("return_as_text", False)
        if return_as_text:
            #self.logger.info("Endpoint '%s' is configured to return text response", endpoint)
            args = {"text": await request.text()}
        elif request.method == "POST": # Parse POST arguments safely
            try:
                ctype = (request.content_type or "").split(";")[0]
                self.logger.info(f"Received POST with content type '{ctype}'")
                if ctype == "application/json":
                    args = await request.json()
                elif ctype in ("application/x-www-form-urlencoded", "multipart/form-data"):
                    args = dict(await request.post())
                elif ctype == "text/plain":
                    args = {"text": await request.text()}
                else: # Unknown or missing content type
                    body = await request.text()
                    args = {"raw": body} if body else {}
                self.logger.info(f"Received args: '{args}'")
            except json.decoder.JSONDecodeError:
                return self.get_response(request, 400, "JSON Decode Error")
        else:  # GET → query parameters
            args = request.query
        # Call the endpoint callback
        use_dictionary_unpacking = utils.has_expanded_kwargs(callback)
        try:
            if asyncio.iscoroutinefunction(callback):
                if use_dictionary_unpacking:
                    return await callback(args, **rargs)
                else:
                    return await callback(args, rargs)
            else:
                if use_dictionary_unpacking:
                    return await utils.run_in_executor(self, callback, args, **rargs)
                else:
                    return await utils.run_in_executor(self, callback, args, rargs)
        except Exception:
            self.logger.error("-" * 60)
            self.logger.error("Unexpected error during endpoint callback")
            self.logger.error(traceback.format_exc())
            self.logger.error("-" * 60)
            return self.get_response(request, 500, "Internal Server Error")

also tested with:

>curl -X POST "http://<appdaemon IP>:5050/api/appdaemon/pwsdata" -i -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{\"key1\":\"value1\",\"key2\":\"value2\"}"
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 16
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2026 12:42:51 GMT
Server: Python/3.12 aiohttp/3.11.12

{"status": "ok"}

>curl -X POST "http://<appdaemon IP>:5050/api/appdaemon/pwsdata" -i -H "Content-Type: text/plain" -d "{\"key1\":\"value1\",\"key2\":\"value2\"}"
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 16
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2026 12:43:24 GMT
Server: Python/3.12 aiohttp/3.11.12

{"status": "ok"}

>curl -X POST "http://<appdaemon IP>:5050/api/appdaemon/pwsdata" -i -d "{\"key1\":\"value1\",\"key2\":\"value2\"}"
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 16
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2026 12:43:34 GMT
Server: Python/3.12 aiohttp/3.11.12

{"status": "ok"}

Version

4.5.11

Installation type

Docker container

Relevant log output

2026-03-14 11:18:00.250597 ERROR AppDaemon: ------------------------------------------------------------
2026-03-14 11:18:00.250953 ERROR AppDaemon: Unexpected error during API call
2026-03-14 11:18:00.251287 ERROR AppDaemon: ------------------------------------------------------------
2026-03-14 11:18:00.252903 ERROR AppDaemon: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/appdaemon/http.py", line 887, in call_app_endpoint
    ret, code = await self.dispatch_app_endpoint(endpoint, request)
    ^^^^^^^^^
ValueError: not enough values to unpack (expected 2, got 0)

2026-03-14 11:18:00.253242 ERROR AppDaemon: ------------------------------------------------------------

Relevant code in the app or config file that caused the issue

Anything else?

No response

[jsl12]

There's much easier ways to get into a position to edit the code, but that sleight of hand with mounting site-packages is pretty clever.

This sounds like a good fix/feature. Are you familiar with opening PRs? If not, you could stop by our Discord and I'd be happy to walk you through it.