twilio catching error does not work - php

Question

I am implementing twilio in my laravel 5 application. To use it in the framework I use aloha/laravel-twilio integration.
Sending a valid request with test-credentials works fine. I have problems when I want to implement an error-handling.
For some reason the catch does not get the error, which results in a crash of the app. The error seems to be in the twilio-sdk if I read the error message correctly.
Here is what I've done so far:
<?php namespace App;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Aloha\Twilio\TwilioInterface;
class Activation extends Model {
protected $fillable = array( 'a', 'b', 'c');
public static function send() {
// Testaccount
// $toNumber = '[phone]'; // valid number; works fine
$toNumber = '[phone]'; // #todo will throw an exeption, and breaks the app
try {
\Twilio::message( $toNumber, 'Pink Elephants and Happy Rainbows');
} catch ( Services_Twilio_RestException $e ) {
elog( 'EACT', $e->getMessage( ) , __FUNCTION__ ); // this is not called when an twilio error occurs
}
}
}
This results in the following error:
Whoops, looks like something went wrong.
Services_Twilio_RestException in /path/to/my/laravel/vendor/twilio/sdk/Services/Twilio.php line 297
Exception_message: The 'To' number [phone] is not a valid phone number.
From the documentation this error (not valid phone numer) shall be thrown, but I should have a possiblity to catch and process it. Currently, this does not work. I do not get the error catched...
How can I get the twilio-errors catched and processed?

Answer 1

The class is in a namespace, so I have to reference the absolut class exception - \Services_Twilio_RestException - in the catch .
It works with this code:
try {
\Twilio::message( $toNumber, 'Pink Elephants and Happy Rainbows');
} catch ( \Services_Twilio_RestException $e ) {
elog( 'EACT', $e->getMessage( ) , __FUNCTION__ );
}

Answer 2

See below which is valid as of today. TwilioException is not valid and neither is Services_Twilio_RestException. You should use Exception instead.
UPDATE
You need to import Twilio\Exceptions\TwilioException for TwilioException to work.
My use case is I had to send to a database of numbers and not have an invalid phone number break my script. We did some work-around a month or two ago which involved logging when a message was sent and had a cron job checking where we left off every two minutes... not efficient when you're sending tens of thousands of text messages.
require_once '../Twilio/autoload.php'; // Loads the library
use Twilio\Rest\Client;
//some test fail numbers
$arr = array(1234567890,"11855976lend1",321619819815,198198195616516);
/* ==================================================================================
//create a function to send SMS using copilot (uses an SID instead of a phone number)
================================================================================*/
function sendSMS($to){
// Download the PHP helper library from twilio.com/docs/php/install
// These vars are your accountSid and authToken from twilio.com/user/account
$account_sid = 'xxx';
$auth_token = 'xxx';
$client = new Client($account_sid, $auth_token);
//this nifty little try/catch will save us pain when we encounter bad phone numbers
try{
$client->messages->create(
$to,
array(
'messagingServiceSid' => "MGxxx",
'body' => "This is the body we're sending."
)
);
//sent successfully
echo "sent to $to successfully<br>";
}catch(Exception $e){
echo $e->getCode() . ' : ' . $e->getMessage()."<br>";
}
}
foreach($arr as &$value){
sendSMS($value);
}
//remember to unset the pointer so you don't run into issues if re-using
unset($value);

Answer 3

Today (19-May-2017) the code is like this :
// Step 1: set our AccountSid and AuthToken from https://twilio.com/console
$AccountSid = "XXX";
$AuthToken = "XXX";
$client = new Client($AccountSid, $AuthToken);
try {
$sms = $client->account->messages->create(
// the number we are sending to - Any phone number
$number,
array(
// Step 2: Change the 'From' number below to be a valid Twilio number
// that you've purchased
'from' => "+XXXXXXXXXXX",
// the sms body
'body' => $sms
)
);
// Display a confirmation message on the screen
echo "Sent message to $name";
} catch (TwilioException $e) {
die( $e->getCode() . ' : ' . $e->getMessage() );
}

Answer 4

This is what worked for me:
$twilioCli = new \Twilio\Rest\Client(config('app.twilioAccountSID'), config('app.twilioAuthToken'));
try {
$twilioCli->messages->create(
$formattedToNum,
[
'from' => config('app.twilioFromNumber'),
'body' => "sms body goes here"
]
);
}
catch (\Twilio\Exceptions\RestException $e) {
echo "Error sending SMS: ".$e->getCode() . ' : ' . $e->getMessage()."\n";
}