[Obs AI Assistant] error when opening old conversation

[klacabane]

Summary

An error is thrown when picking an old conversation from the chat panel. I was only able to trigger this (on main) when opening the chat from a contextual insight

Steps to reproduce:

error_old_conversation.mov

Uncaught Error: Cannot set initialMessages if initialConversationId is set
    useConversation use_conversation.ts:49
    ChatBody chat_body.tsx:97
    React 12
    unstable_runWithPriority scheduler.development.js:468
    React 6

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/obs-knowledge-team (Team:obs-knowledge)

[dgieselaar]

@viduni94 fwiw, this is a warning that is logged in the console, and it happens because the conversationId changes during the lifecycle of the component, which we don't support because of the complexity of creating a new conversation and then updating the url/conversation id. If you manage to reproduce, I would try to figure out if there is actually a bug, and if not, maybe there's a way that we can prevent the warning.

[viduni94]

@viduni94 fwiw, this is a warning that is logged in the console, and it happens because the conversationId changes during the lifecycle of the component, which we don't support because of the complexity of creating a new conversation and then updating the url/conversation id. If you manage to reproduce, I would try to figure out if there is actually a bug, and if not, maybe there's a way that we can prevent the warning.

Hi @dgieselaar
Thanks a lot for the information.
I was able to reproduce the issue.. when I reproduced it, this error crashes the AI assistant and it gets closed automatically (video attached at the end of this comment).
The root cause I found was, when an old conversation is clicked in this context, this condition get's triggered because both initialMessages and initialConversationId are set.
The initialMessages come from the temp conversation triggered from the Contextual Insights (which doesn't have a conversation ID)

I tried fixing the error by not passing initialMessages. This did fix the error and I was able to open an old conversation afterwards.

const { conversation, messages, next, state, stop, saveTitle } = useConversation({
    initialConversationId,
    ...(!initialConversationId ? { initialMessages } : {}),
    initialTitle,
    chatService,
    connectorId: connectors.selectedConnector,
    onConversationUpdate,
  });

However, I realized that as long as initialMessages are set, clicking on "New Chat" will show those messages instead of opening an empty conversation. I've been trying different implementations to figure out how to clear the initialMessages via setMessages([]), but haven't found a reliable method to do it because useConversation is used in the ChatBody and not in the ChatFlyout.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on this. Thank you

---

Video of reproducing the error:
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3346652a-d290-4bc0-b799-baa8811647de

[dgieselaar]

@viduni94 This code is quite a mess, sorry about that 😄 I think what you should be able to do is to use the conversationService to create a new conversation. That will rotate the key used for the ChatFlyout and it will reset initialMessages as well. Here's an example. If you only do this when it's a new conversation, I think it should be fine - but I haven't tried it.

kibana/x-pack/plugins/observability_solution/observability_ai_assistant/public/components/insight/insight.tsx

Line 128 in ee341d5

service.conversations.openNewConversation({

[viduni94]

@viduni94 This code is quite a mess, sorry about that 😄 I think what you should be able to do is to use the conversationService to create a new conversation. That will rotate the key used for the ChatFlyout and it will reset initialMessages as well. Here's an example. If you only do this when it's a new conversation, I think it should be fine - but I haven't tried it.

kibana/x-pack/plugins/observability_solution/observability_ai_assistant/public/components/insight/insight.tsx

Line 128 in ee341d5

service.conversations.openNewConversation({

Hi @dgieselaar
Thanks a lot for the info. And no worries about the code 😄

I did try this solution yesterday, however when I open a new conversation using above method, the flyout closes and reopens instead of remaining open and showing a blank conversation. Hence why I was looking for a way to clear the initial messages instead.

I'll check whether I can use service.conversations.openNewConversation and still persist the open state of the flyout.

Update: service.conversations.openNewConversation always closes the flyout and reopens. Therefore, I'm back to looking for a way to reset the initialMessages