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  1. MusicBrainz Server
  2. MBS-3166

Error messages (from RE in particular) could be more helpful for users and developers

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      The release editor (in particular, although the problem is general) is a complex piece of code and there are many ways to break it. Since users have unpredictable use patterns, and indeed reproducing a problem can be very difficult, we need a better way of capturing some context about what caused a problem

      a) providing hints at a workaround, thus improving usability and user experience
      b) to trace and fix the cause

      Almost every ISE I've ever seen reports "No details about this error are available"; yet for those I have reproduced on test, there has usually been a useful string of text available that could be returned to the user and able to be plugged into bug reports. A ticket search for "internal server error" with "cannot reproduce" status is pretty saddening - hopefully we can improve this!

      As a next step upon providing a message to the user, could we include stack traces in some kind of expandable box "Click to see technical details for reporting bug" to ask people to copy+paste into tickets?

      Another possibility (which may or may not lead to useful..or maybe just more... bug reports) would be pre-generating a Jira report URL for the user to click such as

      http://tickets.musicbrainz.org/secure/CreateIssueDetails!init.jspa?Create=Create&pid=10000&issuetype=1&components=10002&summary=Internal+Server+Error+${message}when editing${release MBID}&description=URL edited:+${releaseURL}%0A%0ADescription+of+what+I+was doing+to+create+this:%0A

      These are just ideas. Others welcome!

      And at least encoding the current URL; release into the description somehow; along with the error message?

            acid2 Oliver Charles
            voiceinsideyou voiceinsideyou
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              Created:
              Updated:
              Resolved:

                Version Package
                Bug fixes, 2011-08-08