Newbie on Fb messenger Sender_action function - facebook

Question

I am under a learning process in chatbot, and kinda new to coding overall ( learning by doing right? )
Trying to execute a messenger function so our chatbot gets the little "writing" bubble for x amount of time before it sends a template. = sender_action_typing_on.
I have tried sleep, await, wait, and so on but the code doesn´t seem to be executed, but the template still shows after the time I chose.
The json is also correct by the documentation from Facebook, and if it get´s executed alone it runs for 20 sek before a timeout.
Code:
if ( $response == "")
{
$jsonData = '{"recipient":{"id":"' . $sender . '"},"message":{"text":"' . $message_to_reply.'"}}';
$jsonDataEncoded = $jsonData;
}
else
if ( $response == "123456")
{
$sender_action_typing_on = '{
"recipient":{
"id":"<PSID>"
},
"sender_action":"Typing_on"
}';
$sender_action_typing_on = str_replace("<PSID>", $sender, $sender_action_typing_on);
$jsonDataEncoded = $sender_action_typing_on;
$velkommenTemplateJSON = str_replace("<PSID>", $sender, $velkommenTemplateJSON);
$jsonDataEncoded = $velkommenTemplateJSON;
}

Answer 1

I have now fixed this issue, this may be very self-explaining for many but for the "lost soul" looking for answers u can see the way i dealed with the problem here:
First i created a new function:
function sendToMessenger($access_token, $sender, $sender_actiontemplateJSON)
{
$content = str_replace("<PSID>", $sender, $sender_actiontemplateJSON);
$opts = array(
'http'=>array(
'method'=>"POST",
'header' => "Content-Type: application/json",
'content' => $content
)
);
$context = stream_context_create($opts);
$url = 'https://graph.facebook.com/v2.6/me/messages?access_token=' . $access_token;
// Open the file using the HTTP headers set above
$file = file_get_contents($url, false, $context);
return $file;
Then i rearranged the way i´m sending template since the template got sent at det end of my code "Sender_action" would always be overwritten, Now with the "SendToMessenger" Function it gets sent right away.
else
if ( $response == "123456")
{
sendToMessenger($access_token, $sender, $sender_actiontemplateJSON);
sleep(1);
sendToMessenger($access_token, $sender, $velkommenTemplateJSON);
}
Now it works like a charm!