hermes - 💡(How to fix) Fix [BUG] Telegram media path escaping broken — regex patterns passed as file paths [1 pull requests]

Description

When the Hermes gateway tries to send audio/image media via Telegram, in some conditions the file path is not properly extracted from the MEDIA: tag. Instead, the raw regex pattern or a debug placeholder string is passed to os.path.exists().

Symptom

Errors in gateway.log:

gateway.platforms.base: [Telegram] Failed to send media (): File file not found: <path>
gateway.platforms.base: [Telegram] Failed to send media (.ogg\n1888): File file not found: /path/to/audio.ogg\n1888
gateway.platforms.base: [Telegram] Failed to send media (.(?:png|jpe?g|...)): File file not found: \s*(?P<path>...`

Notice the path is:

• A debug placeholder like <path>
• A literal path string like /path/to/audio.ogg
• The raw regex pattern itself (the media_pattern from extract_media)

Root Cause

In gateway/platforms/base.py line ~1897, extract_media() parses the response content looking for MEDIA:<path> tags. The regex captures the path group correctly when the path is a clean absolute path. However, when the path extraction fails for any reason (e.g. malformed MEDIA tag, whitespace issues), the code falls through to an else branch where it uses the raw matched text (which may be the entire regex pattern or a debug string) as the path.

The Telegram platform's send_voice calls os.path.exists(audio_path) which returns False for these invalid strings.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Send a message via Telegram that triggers a text_to_speech response
2. Observe the gateway log — the [[audio_as_voice]] / MEDIA:/path/to/audio.ogg tag is sometimes not correctly parsed
3. The error shows a regex pattern or placeholder string as the "path"

Environment

• Hermes Agent: latest
• Platform: Telegram
• OS: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) VM

Suggested Fix

In extract_media() (base.py), add validation before appending to the media list: verify the captured path is a valid filesystem path (starts with /, ~, or a drive letter) before treating it as a file. If the match does not look like a valid path, skip it silently or log a warning with the actual matched text for debugging.

Also audit the send_voice / send_image paths to ensure they receive validated absolute paths only.