432719 - Don't flood Error Console with error messages about caught and handled exceptions

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Calendar :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

Currently there exists several places in the source code (e.g. the timezone guessing code) where exceptions are expected and caught. Nevertheless the exceptions are logged to Error Console as an error message, e.g. by using the ASSERT macro.

From a testers point of view it's not possible to distinguish the non-error error messages from real error messages.

Either don't log the information at all because the code already handled the situation, log it only as an information message or log a useful error description to Error Console.

Comment 1

[Darlene Ford]

That's a good point.   From the user point of view, it's hard to tell which of the error messages I see in the console are related to some flakey behavior that's annoying me, and which are perfectly harmless things that should not be reported as new bugs.  In V0.9, I've seen some (DAV?) errors shown as warnings if handled.   However, I don't see any real correlation between the program's choice of error vs. warning, and my subjective impression that Sunbird did or didn't do what I asked it to do.

I wish there was more or more readable information about what is done to handle errors that are handled.  Did Sunbird try again and succeed?   Give up on the task I commanded?  Finish with small benign changes, like perhaps changing a font?  

Or are there situations where error handling would significantly change the behavior of the program afterward?   Can web access or DAV errors put Sunbird into read-only or off-line mode?  Or am I grasping at straws trying to figure out why it works well some days, and struggles on others?

Comment 2

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen] [:📆][:🧩]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> I wish there was more or more readable information about what is done to handle
> errors that are handled.  Did Sunbird try again and succeed?   Give up on the
> task I commanded?  Finish with small benign changes, like perhaps changing a
> font?
Thunderbird has created the activity manager, which we should use. This gives the user a better overview what failed, what can be retried, what will automatically be retried, etc.

Comment 3

[Worcester12345]

Seems a little better, but still a lot of stuff in the error console which could either be cleaned up or better explained.

Comment 4

[Worcester12345]

Should this also be a "WONTFIX"?

Comment 5

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen] [:📆][:🧩]]

No, because this bug is not fixed and its not an issue that SHOULD NOT be fixed. I read your definition of a WONTFIX bug in the one you filed, but by that logic I should just close all calendar bugs older than a year that I have not gotten to. Bugzilla is for tracking issues and just because no one has gotten to these bugs, it doesn't mean their intent is WONTFIX.

The only possible outcome of this bug is WORKSFORME or FIXED.

Comment 6

[Worcester12345]

Hey, works for me.

Comment 7

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen] [:📆][:🧩]]

I'm inclined to close this bug now in favor of opening more specific bugs (preferably with a patch) if we come across something. Otherwise it is hard to see if we've actually fixed this issue or not.