Problems with Telegram Trigger not detecting messages

[jevylux]

Describe the problem/error/question

I am new to n8n and a want to replicate some worklfows I have seen on Youtube, but am stuck with the first node, a telegramm trigger

I created a telegram bot, and retrieved the api key. I created a node and added the credentials. The check with the credential was ok.
I first had bad request error messages , so I created a new container with the command

docker run --name n8n-tunnel -p 0.0.0.0:5678:5678 -v n8n_data:/home/node/.n8n docker.n8n.io/n8nio/n8n start --tunnel

which showed a tunnel url ( I do not know what to do with it)

Now, the node does not show the bad request error, but when I click on it it says
Listening for test event

But no message is received when I send a message from my telegramm app on my Iphone

What is the error message (if any)?

there is no error message, just listening and not getting my message

All tutorials I see on youtube seem so easy, and never adress this problem

Please share your workflow

Share the output returned by the last node

no output

Information on your n8n setup

• n8n version: 1.75.2
• Database (default: SQLite): default
• n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main):default
• Running n8n via (Docker, npm, n8n cloud, desktop app):Docker
• Operating system: Mac Os Sequoia 15.2

[freddy-schuetz]

I think Telegram requires a SSL Certificate, otherwise it won’t work

[jevylux]

I thought that the problem would be solved by setting the option
start --tunnel
but honestly i have no idea what this tunnel is doing.
I use telegramm bots for my locl homeassistant and iobroker instances, and for these it works.
i have no idea how the communication flow is working here

[PepeVC]

Hi, i have the same problem when i upgrade for the new version, did you solve it ?
Thanks !

[jevylux]

No, not so far. I do not know enough about how this tunnel should work. In my opinion it should open a socket to the telegramm servers, so that the connection is initiated by n8n and not by telegramm. But i am not sure about this and where to find the relevant docs.

[jevylux]

I now have a liitle better understanding of how this should wortk.
Basicvall n8n creates a webhook. When I check my telegram bot with the request
https://api.telegram.org/bot/getWebhookinfo I see the webhook
The domain part of this url equals the tunnel url in my n8n instance.
But nothing else happens. I do not see any logs, nor do I receive my messages that I sent to the Bot.

[Jeremy_Bedingfield]

May or may not be relevant, but it appears in my case I was suffering the same syptoms. However in closer inspection of the webhook created througth --tunnel it is the webhook that doesnt connect. Goes to 503 bad gateway timeout. I am guerssingh i have to solve that before anything that requires it will work. Maybe its the same for you guys?

[jevylux]

I now have another message , after making a new install on a new machine.
in the logs of n8n i see the following
Waiting for tunnel …
Tunnel URL: https://blabla-blabla.hooks.n8n.cloud/

but then i see
connection refused: hooks.n8n.cloud:44517 (check your firewall settings)

i changed the port in the docker compose fie to pint externally to 5679, but I do not think that thos might be a problem

[jevylux]

Thanks for the info. Can you please tell me how you figured this out? Where to look, what to check to simulate the findings?

[mudakisa]

Ok guys. After few days with the same problem I solved it.
How it works in my case.
For tunnel I’m using Ngrok

Here’s my run bat file

@echo off
docker stop n8n
docker rm n8n
docker run -d ^
  -p 8443:8443 ^
  -v n8n_data:/home/node/.n8n ^
  -e N8N_HOST=urladdress.ngrok-free.app ^
  -e N8N_PROTOCOL=https ^
  -e N8N_PORT=8443 ^
  -e WEBHOOK_TUNNEL_URL=https://urladdress.ngrok-free.app ^
  -e NODEJS_PREFER_IPV4=true ^
  -e N8N_LOG_LEVEL=debug ^
  -e N8N_LOG_FILE_LOCATION=/home/node/.n8n/logs/n8n.log ^
  --name n8n ^
  docker.n8n.io/n8nio/n8n start --tunnel
  
ngrok http --url=urladdress.ngrok-free.app 8443