314594 - No error message if invalid URL used for new calendar, creates invalid calendars

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Calendar :: Provider: ICS/WebDAV, defect)

Description

[Anthony]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)
Build Identifier: 2005-10-31-08-trunk

When adding or reloading a remote calendar with a bad URL, error number 0x804a0107 is displayed. An appropriate friendly message should be displayed instead.
Furthermore, correcting the URL does not persist upon the next restart (there seems to be a more general more of saving edited information between restarts, ie. even when using valid URLS's).

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Create reomte calendar with URL:
http://nosuchdomain.com/or/nosuchcalendar.ics


Actual Results:  
Error 0x804a0107.

Expected Results:  
Message "Could not locate calendar <Calendar_Name> at <Bad_URL>".

Display a friendly message.

Comment 1

[Calum Mackay]

confirmed, linux/x86, my build, 20051031.

I get the following on the cmdline:

Parsing the file failed:[Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x804a0100 [calIICSService.parseICS]"  nsresult: "0x804a0100 (<unknown>)"  location: "JS frame :: file:///usr/local/src/mozilla/sunbird/sunbird-200510311632/components/calICSCalendar.js :: anonymous :: line 396"  data: no]

The calendar creation is successful, however, ironically.

Comment 2

[Joey Minta]

I just want to make sure I understand what this bug is asking for, since the summary and comment #1 seem to be heading off in a different direction from 'Expected Results'.

When I tested this, I did get a 'nice' error dialog about read-only status, which to me means the error was 'handled'  (Summary says unhandled).  As I understand it, this bug is a request for specifically handling the case where the calendar doesn't exist, and replacing the 'details' part of the dialog, which says error 0x804a0107 with a message about the calendar not existing.

Is this correct or is there something more severe going on here where an error is actually not being caught?

Comment 3

[Calum Mackay]

I didn't get any error dialog in this case; just the txt on the cmdline as shown in Comment #1.

Comment 4

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

> When I tested this, I did get a 'nice' error dialog about read-only status,
> which to me means the error was 'handled'  (Summary says unhandled). 

Well, it's handled in the sense that we no longer crash, behave unpredictably, or lose data.  But this sort of error message still doesn't make it easy on the user to figure out what the problem is.  I think we probably want as an (eventual) goal to never show this dialog except as an absolute last resort, and always have a user-friendly error message to any condition that might be encountered in normal use conditions.

Comment 5

[Gary van der Merwe]

I've written a UI spec on how I think we can improve this:
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Feature_Implementations:Error_Reporting

Comment 6

[Michiel van Leeuwen (email: mvl+moz@)]

Comments on that proposal:
Just because firefox uses an error page doesn't mean that sunbird should copy it. Firefox has specific reasons for the page (mainly tabs), but that reason doesn't hold for sunbird.
For example, the dialog-with-error-page looks overly busy. There is no need for all those borders, different font sizes and everything. Just use a normal dialog window.
In the wizard, the extra border is also not needed.

And the main problem tracked in this bug is text, not UI or theme or graphics. The text needs to be much clearer. The presentation is for us to worry later.

Comment 7

[Matthew (lilmatt) Willis]

Reassigning all automatically assigned bugs from Mostafa to nobody@m.o

Bugspam filter: TorontoMostafaMove

Comment 8

[Sebastian Schwieger]

I observed 3 different cases of bad url each behaving differently:

1. http://nosuchdomain.com/or/nosuchcalendar.ics
is described in this bug. The calendar is created without an error dialog. After creation of the first event an error dialog pops up. The created event is not deletable.

2. http://server/folder/Test.ics
The calendar is created without an error dialog. After creating the first event, there is an error message in the error console (no dialog!):

Error: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80040111 (NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE) [nsIHttpChannel.requestSucceeded]"  nsresult: "0x80040111 (NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE)"  location: "JS frame :: file:///C:/Programme/Calendar/components/calICSCalendar.js :: anonymous :: line 420"  data: no]
Source File: file:///C:/Programme/Calendar/components/calICSCalendar.js
Line: 420

Additionally no normal shutdown is possible (Sunbird needs to be killed in Task manager)

3. is described in bug 350703
The calendar is not created, error is in the console (no dialog!)

All done with fresh profiles using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20060831 Calendar/0.3a2+

Comment 9

[cmtalbert]

*** Bug 350703 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 10

[cmtalbert]

Changing the summary to accurately reflect the issue here.

Also, in the name of having all information available, I have also copied the steps for the third case o this problem from Bug 350703.

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.6)
Gecko/20060728 Firefox/1.5.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1)
Gecko/20060827 Calendar/0.3a2+

when you try to subscribe remote calendar based on URL which is not valid you
get error instead of user friendly alert

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. subscribe remote calendar URL= Error:
   -> when you type : Next button become enabled
2. finish wizard to create new calendar
Actual Results:  
error console

Error: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x804b0012
[nsIIOService.newChannelFromURI]"  nsresult: "0x804b0012 (<unknown>)" 
location: "JS frame ::
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Damian/Pulpit/sunbird/components/calICSCalendar.js
:: anonymous :: line 127"  data: no]
Source File:
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Damian/Pulpit/sunbird/components/calICSCalendar.js
Line: 127

Comment 11

[Martin Schröder [:mschroeder]]

*** Bug 349712 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

I've been seeing this error recently for a calendar I've been subscribed to for a few months that went away recently.  Clarifying the error message would help, since then users would know what the problem was (I needed assistance from the folks in #calendar to figure it out).

But since the error is out-of-band (i.e. it happens to a background process the user isn't aware of), it's distracting and annoying to get a dialog box about it every time it happens.

Instead of putting it into that dialog, I suggest doing two things:

1. The first time the error occurs, drop down a notification bar (a la Firefox's notification bars) about the problem.  In the bar, mention that events from the calendar won't show up until the problem is corrected.

2. Until the calendar works again, display it in the Calendars box differently.  Highlight it with a light red background color, add an exclamation point icon to its listing (with a tooltip that explains why it's there), and/or do other things to make it clear to the user that there's something wrong with the calendar.

Comment 14

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

A patch to this bug should generally make it easier to display errors in the calendar creation dialog, and find a mechanism for smoothly handling the asynchronous actions needed here. This is also needed for bug 346540.

Christian, do you have some ideas for the UI here?

Comment 18

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.18pre) Gecko/20080917 Sunbird/0.9

This seems to happen if the file can't be read (i. e. because another program still is busy with generating it).

Error: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x804a0100 [calIICSService.parseICS]"  nsresult: "0x804a0100 (<unknown>)"  location: "JS frame :: file:///F:/Software/Buero/Kalender/Sunbird/0.9-Branch/stable/components/calItemModule.js -> file:///F:/Software/Buero/Kalender/Sunbird/0.9-Branch/stable/js/calIcsParser.js :: ip_parseString :: line 58"  data: no]
Source File: file:///F:/Software/Buero/Kalender/Sunbird/0.9-Branch/stable/components/calItemModule.js -> file:///F:/Software/Buero/Kalender/Sunbird/0.9-Branch/stable/js/calIcsParser.js
Line: 58

Comment 19

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

We have an error bar, now we just need to handle the async stuff. Possibly we could add a method to calICalendar or calICalendarProvider that instructs the provider to check if the url is a valid calendar.

For ics this means sending a HEAD query to see if it has type text/calendar, for caldav it might mean detecting the right url and then changing it in the dialog.

Comment 20

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

This bug might be fixed by Lenni's new calendar wizard. Assigning to him so this bug isn't forgotten.

Comment 21

[Felix Möller]

An extension of Lennarts work can be found in bug #378873.

Comment 22

[GNANA PRAVEEN]

1. The first time the error occurs, drop down a notification bar (a la Firefox's notification bars) about the problem.  In the bar, mention that events from the calendar won't show up until the problem is corrected.

2. Until the calendar works again, display it in the Calendars box differently.  Highlight it with a light red background color, add an exclamation point icon to its listing (with a tooltip that explains why it's there), and/or do other things to make it clear to the user that there's something wrong with the calendar.

Comment 23

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

This was fixed at some point.