1170649 - Don't Ask Non-Developer Users To Debug Scripts When They Crash

Status: NEW

(DevTools :: General, defect, P3)

Description

[Alex Davis [:adavis]]

Attachment: Screen Shot 2015-04-28 at 8.05.13 PM.png

The common user doesn't understand what "Warning: Unresponsive script" means. In fact, it scares some of them. "OMG, it says warning! What's wrong?"

This goes without saying that they have no idea what they should click: "Debug Script" or "Continue"?

We need to display a more user friendly error message that gives an understandable actionable message. For example, "Oops, something went wrong. Refresh your page to resolve the issue." or "Oops, [Add-on] has crashed. Click here to refresh it."


"Warning: Unresponsive script" should only be displayed in developer mode.

Comment 1

[Alex Davis [:adavis]]

Attachment: google-chrome-about-crash.png

Here is an example of Chrome's much more friendly error messages.

Comment 2

[Jeff Griffiths (:canuckistani) (:⚡︎)]

(In reply to Alex Davis [:adavis] from comment #0)

> "Warning: Unresponsive script" should only be displayed in developer mode.

Worth noting - currently there is no such thing as 'developer mode'.

Comment 3

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

(In reply to Jeff Griffiths (:canuckistani) from comment #2)
> (In reply to Alex Davis [:adavis] from comment #0)
> 
> > "Warning: Unresponsive script" should only be displayed in developer mode.
> 
> Worth noting - currently there is no such thing as 'developer mode'.

We could potentially use the current dialog only if the toolbox is open.

If the toolbox is closed, we could just kill the tab.  But, perhaps that's undesired in some cases...

Comment 4

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

One point of confusion: as a user, it's less about debugging scripts, but more about control over whether tab should be killed or not.

It's meant to be same as your OS saying "the application is not responding".

Comment 5

[Alex Davis [:adavis]]

(In reply to J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (use ni?) from comment #4)
> One point of confusion: as a user, it's less about debugging scripts, but
> more about control over whether tab should be killed or not.
> 
> It's meant to be same as your OS saying "the application is not responding".

@Jeff Griffiths , I meant to say the FirefoxDeveloperEdition but I got to work way to early this morning so I'm too quick. lol

@Ryan, I love these suggestions! Detecting the toolbox would ultimately be the best. Killing & reloading the tab or add-on is really all that people regular users care about.