FlattenedString Serializer Can not convert a string from third app properly

[russellgsystems]

I am receiving a payload from a third party software. The payload is a JSON string. I am using the Decode Application Message.vi with a string as the constant as the data type for the variant. But when I get error 116 (Flattened String To Variant in OpenSerializer.lvlib:Serializer.FlattenedString.lvclass:unmarshalling.vi:3430001->OpenSerializer.lvlib:Serializer.lvclass:UnMarshall.vi->OpenSerializer.lvlib:Serializer.lvclass:UnMarshall (binary).vi->MQTT Base.lvlib:MQTT_Base.lvclass:Decode Publish Package.vi:2830001->MQTT Client.lvlib:Client.lvclass:Decode Application Message (Type).vi->Test MQTT Subscribe.vi).

If I dig inside the VI and add a byte array to string VI then the JSON string looks correct see screenshot below. So that is my work around for now. I saw that you had a plain text to variant VI and tried that but it also did not work. I am wonder if their some other way to do this instead of just taking the byte array and converting it to a string.