question

newuser-748b3724-1f9c-48d6-96a2-8f9fadcc0591 avatar image

Why does the Fallback Intent not get called if you say ONE random word?

Whenever I go inside the skill and say one completely random word, the Fallback Intent is not triggered. The echo will just emit a sound and in the Alexa simulator, it would just show nothing. But I know for a fact that I am still inside the skill and the session has not yet ended since if I try to say an utterance that is mapped to a certain intent without including the word Alexa, it would respond correctly. BUT, if I try to say TWO completely random words the Fallback Intent is triggered. For example(this is already inside the skill), if I say the word "pizza" it would just respond with that weird noise and stay in the current session. But if I say the words "pizza pie" it would map to the Fallback Intent.

I have observed this behavior in a skill that has many custom intents each having many utterances configured. But when I tried inputting the word "pizza" to a skill with only 3 custom intents, the Fallback intent works fine.

intentsutterancessessionfallbackintent
10 |5000

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Anand@Amazon avatar image
Anand@Amazon answered

Hello Developer,

Please share skill id for further debugging.

10 |5000

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Rokas avatar image
Rokas answered

I spotted the same issue with fallback intent. It is really hard to invoke it if you have a slot with a lot of value, because it gets matched to something, even though as you said it might be a random word. If you leave just a couple of values in the slot, fallback intent gets invoked easier.
I have no idea how to fix it in the model, but I handle everything in the backend code. If value doesn't match value I want, I redirect that call to fallback intent code.

2 comments
10 |5000

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

D. Walker avatar image D. Walker commented ·

Set validation in the Intent to be strictly from your list. Other single random words should hit the fallback then.

0 Likes 0 ·
MediaRez avatar image MediaRez D. Walker commented ·

I'm having a similar issue and tried exactly this - forcing my only one-word intent to only match the 5 words it's supposed to match. This still caused the model to fail to match other one-word utterances to either that intent or the FallbackIntent (though utterance profiler says both were considered). Quite frustrating, I hope someone can figure this out!

0 Likes 0 ·
Vlad avatar image
Vlad answered

Did you guys ever figure it out?

I noticed the same behavior, logged case 5559384951 for the same. No feedback so far

1 comment
10 |5000

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Anand@Amazon avatar image Anand@Amazon ♦ commented ·

Hey Vlad,

I think Jason already reached put to you on your query and please follow contact us case for further response.

0 Likes 0 ·
newuser-467ea0c6-1a43-4b1a-8ceb-e13410537579 avatar image
newuser-467ea0c6-1a43-4b1a-8ceb-e13410537579 answered

HI , I am too facing the same issue. Please let us know if there is any solution?

1 comment
10 |5000

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Anand@Amazon avatar image Anand@Amazon ♦ commented ·

Hi there,

Can you share skill id wit us for further investigation?

0 Likes 0 ·
Jamhead avatar image
Jamhead answered

I'm having the same issue, opened question https://forums.developer.amazon.com/questions/212237/fallback-intent-not-firing.html for it and no response yet.

10 |5000

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Rodrigo avatar image
Rodrigo answered

I think I just found the solution...

Having single word on any intent, Alexa by mistake (obviously), tends to match a single word interaction with some intent with a single word as sample utterances!!!!!!

As I see, Alexa uses the terms and the term count to calculate the statistical match with user interaction... wow!

Hope it helps you guys!!!

10 |5000

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.