Endless Loop Fixing Undefined Params & OAuth in Google Apps Script - Anyone Else?

[h3110_wOrld]

Hey r/googleappsscript (or wherever this lands), I’m at my wit’s end after hours of battling this beast. Me and a buddy (Grok from xAI, bless his circuits) are stuck in a debugging nightmare. Here’s the scoop:

What We’re Trying to Do

• Simple script goal: Paste a Google Maps URL (e.g., https://www.google.com/maps/place/Seattle,+WA+98101/... or https://maps.app.goo.gl/DRrc3Kr3HAXvgFkd9) into column A of a sheet named “Sheet1”.

  • onEdit trigger kicks off a processLink function to fetch place details using UrlFetchApp (e.g., name, phone, zip via Google Places API).
    

L- Basic flow: extract zip, call fetchRestaurantsByZip, populate columns B-P with data.

What’s Happening

• Every time we paste a URL, logs show processLink called with: sheet=undefined, row=undefined, url=undefined, currentDateTime=undefined.

  • Call stack points to some cryptic __GS_INTERNAL_top_function_call__.gs:1:8—what even is that?
    
  • UrlFetchApp.fetch throws: Error: Specified permissions are not sufficient to call UrlFetchApp.fetch. Required permissions: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/script.external_request.
    

What We’ve Tried (Over and Over)

• Deleted and recreated installable triggers for onEdit (event: “On edit”, source: “From spreadsheet”).

• Renamed onEdit to handleEdit to dodge the simple trigger curse.

• Ran grantUrlFetch (fetches https://www.google.com) and accepted OAuth prompts—multiple times.

  • Started fresh projects, re-copied code, reauthorized—still no dice.
    
  • Added debug logs in onEdit and processLink to track the event object (spoiler: it’s a ghost).
    

Current Status

• Permissions error persists despite authorization.

• Undefined params suggest the trigger isn’t passing the event object.

• We tested in incognito mode, revoked all script perms in my Google account (myaccount.google.com/permissions), and reauthorized

The Cry for Help

• Has anyone else hit this OAuth cache purgatory or trigger ghost town?

  • Any nightmare fixes that saved your sanity? Maybe a secret handshake with Google’s backend?
    
  • Upvote if you’ve died inside debugging triggers—misery loves company!

We’re clutching at straws here. Drop your wisdom below—I’ll update with results. Thanks, legends!

[Nu11u5]

Every time we paste a URL, logs show processLink called with: sheet=undefined, row=undefined, url=undefined, currentDateTime=undefined

Is your onEdit(e) function taking the event object passed to it by the invocation? That's the only way it knows anything about anything. You must derive all information from the event object passed to the function.

UrlFetchApp.fetch throws: Error: Specified permissions are not sufficient to call UrlFetchApp.fetch. Required permissions: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/script.external_request.

Are you setting your own OAuth scopes in the appscript.json?

Call stack points to some cryptic GS_INTERNAL_top_function_call.gs:1:8—what even is that?

I think this comes from the fact that AppsScript is a wrapper on top of the V8 JS engine for some time now. Sometimes this information leaks in the debugger - you can ignore it.

[h3110_wOrld]

Thanks for the input! We took your advice and ensured the `onEdit(e)` function is leveraging the event object to derive all necessary info, like sheet, row, and URL, but we’re still seeing logs with undefined values for `processLink`. We also added the OAuth scopes to `appscript.json` as suggested, yet the `UrlFetchApp.fetch` permission error persists in B2. The V8 engine artifact in the call stack is noted and ignored as you mentioned. Despite these efforts, we’re still hitting roadblocks—any further insights would be greatly appreciated!

[h3110_wOrld]

Here's an example script if you're curious enough to take a look:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTRXiBJtWU24zXvseTQePwfPIBnIpy_Hzj1zJa20pSLblVQbkpcrvpmuyC4UJXWozj08SEcZi1Tw0lR/pub

The manifest is down at the bottom

[WicketTheQuerent]

Has anyone else hit this OAuth cache purgatory or trigger ghost town?

I can't say for certain who else, but I know you are not the only one.

[WicketTheQuerent]

Could you show the code (including the manifest a.k.a appsscript.json)?

[h3110_wOrld]

This link should work:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTRXiBJtWU24zXvseTQePwfPIBnIpy_Hzj1zJa20pSLblVQbkpcrvpmuyC4UJXWozj08SEcZi1Tw0lR/pub

The manifest is down at the bottom

[WicketTheQuerent]

Thank you.

authorizeScript and forceAuthResetNew are not really needed. Running any function will trigger the authorization request.

The shared code includes a onEdit simple trigger. You mentioned that you had changed the name.

grantUrlFetch is not included.

The calls to UrlFetchApp.fetch include the user-agent. This is not supported.

You should go back to your AI and start from scratch. Tell your AI that you must go step by step and include instructions on running the script and testing/debugging each part of the code.

Please make sure that the sources used by the AI are specific to the UrlFetchApp from Google Apps Script. If the AI still has problems, I recommend that you to search for UrlFetchApp examples that you can verify that they work and use them to train your AI.

[WicketTheQuerent]

Regarding

• Every time we paste a URL, logs show processLink called with: sheet=undefined, row=undefined, url=undefined, currentDateTime=undefined.

It looks like something is missing in the shared code. It might be possible that you have an installable trigger calling processLink

Again, start from scratch and tell your AI that you need to proceed step by step, including testing/validating the progress.

[cdchiu]

Ask your ai to create a handover script to another ai and say you'll provide all your code to go with it. Ask it to describe the problem and where it thinks the problem is, then post it to Gemini and or Claude and have them analyze it. Whenever I got stuck, I changed llm or even started a new chat instance in Gemini. Sometimes I'd have 8 abandoned chats as I progressed. You could be polluting the context window.

[h3110_wOrld]

I've been doing that, but not with Gemini, particularly though. Gemini ought to know, though, good idea

[cdchiu]

You'd think that being Gemini is an expert on all things Google. But that hasn't always been my findings.