Issue with Google Slides API – Error 400: replaceAllText Match Text Should Not Be Empty

[Fanta_kaba]

Hello Make Support Team,

I’m encountering a recurring issue in my scenario involving the Google Slides “Make an API Call” module. The error I receive is:

[400] Invalid requests[0].replaceAllText: The match text should not be empty.

This happens even though:

• My scenario successfully retrieves data from a Google Sheet.
• The presentation files are correctly created in Google Drive with personalized content.
• The replacement instructions are clearly defined in the requests.replaceAllText block.

Despite this, the scenario fails at the API call level. I’ve confirmed that the text mapping is correct, and I’ve even manually verified that the document contains the placeholder texts.

I’m attaching several screenshots to illustrate the flow and the issue.

Could you please help me understand:

1. Why the system considers the match text empty, even when mapping appears correct?
2. If there’s a better way to structure the body of the API request to avoid this?
3. Whether there’s a built-in way to skip or ignore replaceAllText instructions when the value is null or empty?
4. here is the JSON code :
   {
   “requests”: [
   {
   “replaceAllText”: {
   “containsText”: {
   “text”: “{{prenom}}”,
   “matchCase”: true
   },
   “replaceText”: “{{15.0}}”
   }
   },
   {
   “replaceAllText”: {
   “containsText”: {
   “text”: “{{nom_de_naissance_de_votre_pere}}”,
   “matchCase”: true
   },
   “replaceText”: “{{15.1}}”
   }
   },
   {
   “replaceAllText”: {
   “containsText”: {
   “text”: “{{nom_de_naissance_de_votre_mere}}”,
   “matchCase”: true
   },
   “replaceText”: “{{15.2}}”
   }
   },
   {
   “replaceAllText”: {
   “containsText”: {
   “text”: “{{date_de_naissance}}”,
   “matchCase”: true
   },
   “replaceText”: “{{15.3}}”
   }
   },
   {
   “replaceAllText”: {
   “containsText”: {
   “text”: “{{date_du_jour}}”,
   “matchCase”: true
   },
   “replaceText”: “{{15.11}}”
   }
   }
   ]
   }

Thanks in advance for your help!

Best regards,

[samliew]

Welcome to the Make community!

Looks like the variable {{prenom}}could not be found in your presentation. Ensure that {{prenom}} exists in your presentation.

You may also want to check if {{15.0}} has a value. You can use the built-in function ifempty to default to something else.

Hope this helps! Let me know if there are any further questions or issues.

— @samliew

[Fanta_kaba]

Hi @samliew ,

Thanks for your answer !!
Actually, as you can notice there is this error but the file is created with all the map done perfectly, as you can see in the pics.

So i am just blocked there but i do not understand why there is this kind of error…

The thing is that error stop the scenario…

[samliew]

You are only seeing the successful ones. Some of them may have blank/empty values, that causes the error.

Handle errors so scenarios don’t stop.

You might want to add some error handling to your modules to handle exceptions, so the failing module(s) can automatically be retried or ignored. By handling any errors by adding a “Error handler” to the module, the scenario won’t throw an error and get turned off.

Error directives can only be added to an error handler route.

1. Right click and select “Add error handler”

2. Error handlers will appear

For more information on error handling, see:

• Introduction to errors and warnings in Make
• Overview of error handling in Make
• Error handlers
• Overview of error handling in Make
• Watch these videos by Make - Learn all about error handling (YouTube playlist)
• Webhook Error Handling
• Types of Errors (including RateLimitError HTTP 429: too many requests)

Hope this helps! Let me know if there are any further questions or issues. P.S.: investing some effort into the tutorials in the Make Academy will save you lots of time and frustration using Make!

— @samliew