# Initializing Custom States

**URL:** <https://community.hubspot.com/t/initializing-custom-states/133966>\
**Category:** APIs & Integrations\
**Tags:** starter\
**Created:** [June 5, 2025, 5:18am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/initializing-custom-states/133966 "2025-06-05T05:18:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Igee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c37758/32.png) [@Igee](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Igee)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2025, 5:18am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/initializing-custom-states/133966/1 "2025-06-05T05:18:09Z")

</div>

Hello good day is there a way for initializing custom states as I am having problems when checking against them.  
I checked before and when I used an uninitialized custom state in an if statement it went to the else branch, but now it throws me an error and makes the chatflow respond with just a line.

Here is the source code:

```lia-code-sample
 try {
 if (event.session.customState.customResponse != '') {
 requestMessage = event.session.customState.customResponse
 oldConversation = true

 } else if (event.session.customState.oldConversation == 'true') {
 requestMessage = event.userMessage.message
 oldConversation = true
 } else {
 requestMessage = 'Hello Good Day'
 oldConversation = true
 }
 } catch (error) {
 requestMessage = event.userMessage.message
 }

```

It currently gives an incorrect error when run

`ERROR	Invoke Error {"errorType":"TypeError","errorMessage":"Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'toLowerCase')","stack":["TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'toLowerCase')"," at exports.main (/var/task/Template.js:57:24)"," at exports.hubspot_handler [as handler] (/var/task/hubspotHandler.js:7:21)"," at Runtime.handleOnceNonStreaming (file:///var/runtime/index.mjs:1187:29)"]}`

This points to another line of code that runs after said comparison and assignment.

Thank you.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jaycee\_Lewis](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/jaycee_lewis/32/61352_2.png) [@Jaycee\_Lewis](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Jaycee_Lewis)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2025, 9:22pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/initializing-custom-states/133966/2 "2025-06-05T21:22:43Z")

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Hey @Igee 👋 Thanks for the interesting question. I wonder if this is happening because at the very beginning of a conversation, `event.userMessage.message` can _also_ be undefined, which leads to the error in a later part of the code. Have you tried to directly and explicitly check if your state and message exist? Also, an option to consider — using optional chaining `(?.)` to safely access nested properties like `event.session.customState.customResponse`, which prevents an error by immediately returning undefined if any object in the chain is missing.

Example:

if (event.session?.customState?.customResponse) { … }

Best,

Jaycee

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Igee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c37758/32.png) [@Igee](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Igee)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2025, 9:48am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/initializing-custom-states/133966/3 "2025-06-17T09:48:06Z")

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This seems to work as a solution to my problem. The if statement goes to the false clause when the states are undefined now. Thank you.

```lia-code-sample
 try {
 if (event.session.customState?.customResponse) {
 requestMessage = event.session.customState.customResponse
 oldConversation = true

 } else if (event.session.customState?.oldConversation) {
 requestMessage = event.userMessage.message
 oldConversation = true

 } else {
 requestMessage = 'Hello Good Day'
 oldConversation = true

 }

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jaycee\_Lewis](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/jaycee_lewis/32/61352_2.png) [@Jaycee\_Lewis](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Jaycee_Lewis)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 2025, 5:32pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/initializing-custom-states/133966/4 "2025-06-23T17:32:36Z")

</div>

Hey, @Igee 👋 Thank you so much for taking the time to come back and let us know what worked! — Jaycee