Launchpad itself

Unhelpful "Invalid value" error when requesting fix for non-existent package/product

Bug #1922 reported by Matthew Paul Thomas
44
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Launchpad itself
Fix Released
High
Björn Tillenius

Bug Description

If you request a bug to be fixed for a product or package that doesn't exist, the form says "Invalid value", which is not very polite. It would be much more helpful to say:
* "There is no package in xyz named abc. If it should be here, __report this as a bug__."
* "There is no product in Launchpad named abc."
(In the second case we could invite people to create the product, but that would perhaps be a bad idea for someone trying to get a bug fixed, since they're probably trying to get it fixed by someone who doesn't use Launchpad.)

Even better would be "There is no package in xyz named abc. Did you mean __abd__? If abc should be here, __report this as a bug__.", where abd is linked only if JavaScript is available, in which case clicking it changes the field to abd. Implementing that isn't necessary for this bug to be fixed, but if it isn't implemented, it should be reported as a separate bug.

Tags: lp-bugs ui
Revision history for this message
Stuart Bishop (stub) wrote :

This should wait until the following branch is reviewed (it could be implemented now as you describe, but if accepted this branch provides an improved mechanism with more flexiblility):

<email address hidden>/launchpad--Zope3FormErrorMessages--0

Brad Bollenbach (bradb)
Changed in malone:
assignee: nobody → bradb
status: New → Accepted
Revision history for this message
Sivan Greenberg (sivan) wrote :

As I reported bug #55553 , and marked it as duplicate of this one, I'm adding here a note that we also need to check for the validity of the input, and make sure to display a suitable error message and stop processing if the inputted name does not comply, if it complies with some basic validation rules (like name_validator for example) then we can move on to check if it falls within the vocabulary constraints.

Changing the default error message for something that was not found in the vocabulary is essential regardless of this.

Revision history for this message
Guilherme Salgado (salgado) wrote :

I think this is an infrastructural issue affecting almost all forms containing fields that use vocabularies, and is reported as bug 4576. Should we merge these two bugs or mark this one as a dupe?

Revision history for this message
Christian Reis (kiko) wrote :

If both will be fixed by the same patch, then yes, it's a dupe.

Brad Bollenbach (bradb)
Changed in malone:
assignee: bradb → nobody
Revision history for this message
Christian Reis (kiko) wrote :

Confusing end-users and way past implementation time, let's do this.

Changed in malone:
importance: Medium → Critical
Revision history for this message
shan (shansha-uk) wrote :

As I reported bug #55553 , and marked it as duplicate of this one, I'm adding here a note that we also need to check for the validity of the input, and make sure to display a suitable error message and stop processing if the inputted name does not comply, if it complies with some basic validation rules (like name_validator for example) then we can move on to check if it falls within the vocabulary constraints.

Changing the default error message for something that was not found in the vocabulary is essential regardless of this.

Revision history for this message
Christian Reis (kiko) wrote :

Need to merge an account Sivan? ;-)

Christian Reis (kiko)
Changed in malone:
assignee: nobody → bjorn
importance: Critical → High
assignee: bjorn → bjornt
Revision history for this message
Bjørn Ruberg (bjorn) wrote : Re: [Bug 1922] Unhelpful "Invalid value" error when requesting fix for non-existent package/product

Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> Public bug reported:

Hi.

Sorry, but I don't know what on earth this is - neither the alleged bug
report nor launchpad.

If you are associated with the project, please remove my name and e-mail
address from this project. If not, I apologize for the inconvenience.

Thanks.

--
Bjørn

Revision history for this message
Björn Tillenius (bjornt) wrote :

A fix is in the review queue.

Changed in malone:
status: Confirmed → In Progress
Björn Tillenius (bjornt)
Changed in malone:
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :

Either this has regressed, or the previous fix didn't work for some reason. I still get an error of the form "('Invalid value', token u'launchpad-dependencies' not found in vocabulary)".

Changed in malone:
status: Fix Committed → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Björn Tillenius (bjornt) wrote :

Where exactly are you getting that error message? I assumed that 'requesting fix' in this bug report referred to the 'Also affects' pages, and it seems to be still fixed there.

Changed in malone:
status: Confirmed → Needs Info
Revision history for this message
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :

Because bug 51738 was a duplicate of this bug report, I concluded that it covered all cases of entering an invalid target. Since it doesn't, I've reported bug 78889 on the retargeting problem. Sorry for the confusion.

Changed in malone:
status: Needs Info → Fix Committed
Björn Tillenius (bjornt)
Changed in malone:
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
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