TW5 - Another RSOD suggestion

[tejjyid]

Roughly half the time when I get the RSOD, when I click on the offending tiddler to amend it, I get another RSOD telling me Node is not defined. I know that; I don't use it. I do my development in the browser. Why do I need to see this message, and more particularly, why is not having Node - I thought it was optional - so serious as to cause an RSOD?

Thanks, Andrew

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Andrew

The “red screen of death” is triggered by untrapped JavaScript errors. In general, there are no guarantees as to the internal state of the system after an error because it will have been left in an intermediate state. That’s why the only good general advice is to restart TiddlyWiki. In practice, some errors are more recoverable than others, but continuing after an RSOD is inherently risky.

Roughly half the time when I get the RSOD, when I click on the offending tiddler to amend it, I get another RSOD telling me Node is not defined. I know that; I don't use it. I do my development in the browser. Why do I need to see this message, and more particularly, why is not having Node - I thought it was optional - so serious as to cause an RSOD?

The error message here is referring to a variable called “Node”, which is part of the standard DOM specification, and nothing to do with Node.js.

Best wishes

Jeremy.

Thanks, Andrew

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[Eric Weir]

Still a subscriber, but haven’t posted in a long time. I need help with something not TW related, but that I thought this group might have a thought about.

The email from Jeremy was in my mailbox this morning, but the “to” address was not mine. It was "h...@alph146.prodigy.net.” There were several other emails like this, legitimately mine but with a “to” address that was not mine. All had the same address except that the contained three digit number was different. E.g., an email from my healthcare provider seeking feedback on a recent doctor’s visit was address to "h...@alph133.prodigy.net.

Other messages like this have been arriving throughout the morning, all seemingly from sources from which I regularly receive email, all with this incorrect “to” address but with a varying three-digit contained number.

It’s been suggest that these are phising attempts, and that I should not click on any of the the links in the messages, on the “click here to begin your survey” link in the message from my healthcare provider. These don’t seem like normal phising emails, which I take are usually/always sent to the correct “to” address.

Mystified? Any sense of what’s going on? Reason to be concerned?

Thanks,

Eric Weir

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/EA230369-272C-483A-B03C-DFA54A2E0FBF%40gmail.com.

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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA USA
eew...@bellsouth.net

"Our world is a human world."

- Hilary Putnam

[Eric Weir]

Resending with a different subject heading. Suspect the original was old and might not get much attention.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Still a subscriber, but haven’t posted in a long time. I need help with something not TW related, but that I thought this group might have a thought about.

The email from Jeremy was in my mailbox this morning, but the “to” address was not mine. It was "h...@alph146.prodigy.net.” There were several other emails like this, legitimately mine but with a “to” address that was not mine. All had the same address except that the contained three digit number was different. E.g., an email from my healthcare provider seeking feedback on a recent doctor’s visit was address to "h...@alph133.prodigy.net.

Other messages like this have been arriving throughout the morning, all seemingly from sources from which I regularly receive email, all with this incorrect “to” address but with a varying three-digit contained number.

It’s been suggest that these are phising attempts, and that I should not click on any of the the links in the messages, on the “click here to begin your survey” link in the message from my healthcare provider. These don’t seem like normal phising emails, which I take are usually/always sent to the correct “to” address.

Mystified? Any sense of what’s going on? Reason to be concerned?

Thanks,

Eric Weir


> On Mar 9, 2017, at 6:14 AM, Jeremy Ruston <jeremy...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/EA230369-272C-483A-B03C-DFA54A2E0FBF%40gmail.com.

> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[tejjyid]

Thanks Jeremy. It's a good idea to expain reason in messages. "As a result of an error, you need to restart Tiddlywiki to protect your data" would be more communicatively effective. Or if you feel "need to" is too coercive "should" conveys the notion of recommendation nicely. If you are uncomfortable addressing the user directly, then "Tiddlywiki should be restarted to protect its/your data" may suit. I prefer the more direct approach.

As i've noted elsewhere "This is embarrassing" is not useful. You have no need to be embarrassed on my behalf - or indeed, your own, in the rare event that the error originates in TW core.

The problem with being half clever (me) is that you make a lot of bad guesses. Sorry you have to suffer for them. The information "Node was not found" is really not useful to the casual user, so there's no value in presenting it. The user who can make use of it will easily find it in the console. (I would probably have been asking about it anyway, despite that)

Cheers.

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Andrew

Thanks Jeremy. It's a good idea to expain reason in messages. "As a result of an error, you need to restart Tiddlywiki to protect your data" would be more communicatively effective. Or if you feel "need to" is too coercive "should" conveys the notion of recommendation nicely. If you are uncomfortable addressing the user directly, then "Tiddlywiki should be restarted to protect its/your data" may suit. I prefer the more direct approach.

Good suggestions, thank you. Is changing the wording addressed in PR #2799?

As i've noted elsewhere "This is embarrassing" is not useful. You have no need to be embarrassed on my behalf - or indeed, your own, in the rare event that the error originates in TW core.

I think I used that phrasing as a nod to a meme carried by Firefox and others (see below). I’d be happy to ditch it; it is a bit folksy for my tastes.

The problem with being half clever (me) is that you make a lot of bad guesses. Sorry you have to suffer for them. The information "Node was not found" is really not useful to the casual user, so there's no value in presenting it. The user who can make use of it will easily find it in the console. (I would probably have been asking about it anyway, despite that)

The idea of presenting the error message is so that we can ask users for details of error messages without asking them to delve into dev tools (which is mostly impossible on mobile devices). We could perhaps better separate the technical details from the end user message.

Best wishes

Jeremy.

Cheers.

On Thursday, 9 March 2017 22:14:58 UTC+11, Jeremy Ruston wrote:

Hi Andrew

The “red screen of death” is triggered by untrapped JavaScript errors. In general, there are no guarantees as to the internal state of the system after an error because it will have been left in an intermediate state. That’s why the only good general advice is to restart TiddlyWiki. In practice, some errors are more recoverable than others, but continuing after an RSOD is inherently risky.

Roughly half the time when I get the RSOD, when I click on the offending tiddler to amend it, I get another RSOD telling me Node is not defined. I know that; I don't use it. I do my development in the browser. Why do I need to see this message, and more particularly, why is not having Node - I thought it was optional - so serious as to cause an RSOD?

The error message here is referring to a variable called “Node”, which is part of the standard DOM specification, and nothing to do with Node.js.

Best wishes

Jeremy.

Thanks, Andrew

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[PMario]

On Saturday, March 11, 2017 at 9:05:14 AM UTC+1, Jeremy Ruston wrote:

As i've noted elsewhere "This is embarrassing" is not useful. You have no need to be embarrassed on my behalf - or indeed, your own, in the rare event that the error originates in TW core.

I think I used that phrasing as a nod to a meme carried by Firefox and others (see below). I’d be happy to ditch it; it is a bit folksy for my tastes.

I can change the wording in PR #2799, if you want. .. but we have to be sure about the exact phrase, since it also affects all translations.

I'd like to change the order of the arguments. eg: "We are sorry! To protect your data we highly recommend to restart TiddlyWiki."

-mario

[tejjyid]

"We are sorry!" is better than "This is embarrassing", although I would omit both myself. I guess that depends on how often the RSOD is seen as a result of user activity, vs system bug appearance. Obviously in the latter case, if feels right to apologise. I prefer "To protect your data you need to restart TiddlyWiki". If we stick with "highly recommend", I prefer "restarting", but that may be Australian dialect.

AW

[PMario]

On Wednesday, March 15, 2017 at 11:03:52 AM UTC+1, tejjyid wrote:

"We are sorry!" is better than "This is embarrassing", although I would omit both myself. I guess that depends on how often the RSOD is seen as a result of user activity, vs system bug appearance. Obviously in the latter case, if feels right to apologise. I prefer "To protect your data you need to restart TiddlyWiki". If we stick with "highly recommend", I prefer "restarting", but that may be Australian dialect.

IMO the core and tiddlywiki/plugins don't throw RSOD often. .. I personally only see it during development. And there, I don't even read it, since I have more info in the dev panel. ..

So for users I'd go with "We are sorry! ... " because, it really shouldn't happen.

We could also provide a link, to open a new issue at github. Similar to this one, that Mat and I created at the last EU meeting. ... It didn't make to TW yet and I didn't push it, since we already have enough pending PRs :/

-m

[tejjyid]

That's my experience too. I've never seen it when it wasn't my fault. That's why I feel the apology is awkward, because mainly it will be the user at fault. The communication is well-intentioned, but it doesn't match the pragmatics of the situation. That kind of mismatch is what I was looking to avoid. But look, I don't want to waste your time on it. As a final compromise/suggestion, how about "Sorry, but this might be serious. To protect your data..." But I will absolutely be happy with your final call. Otherwise this kind of discussion can go on for years!

Thanks for taking the time over this.

Andrew   

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao all

Just a side comment of my experience as a user who doesn't really know what those messages mean other than "close it & restart." :-)

The impact on me when I was first using TW of Red Messages: they got me in a hot sweat. Till I realised they are rarely fatal. My single biggest issue has never been them. Its been browser crashes corrupting the TW file.

To be honest its the AESTHETICS of the warnings as much as anything that scared me, and likely for others who have no clear idea what is happening.

TBH, I'd rather have a message like ...

      DON'T PANIC. There is a problem but it is likely not a disaster, just a small glitch.

      To be safe, please close the window this TW is in and reopen it.

      NOTA BENE: Please make sure that you always regularly backup your TiddlyWiki
      because failures do happen & it would be a great shame if you lost your work.

A message something like that.

Having the message in Glaring Red may feel like a good idea. I think a softer colour like Light Pink would be just as good without the extreme aesthetic alert factor.

Just some thoughts.

Best wishes
Josiah

[PMario]

On Thursday, March 16, 2017 at 1:45:53 PM UTC+1, @TiddlyTweeter wrote:

The impact on me when I was first using TW of Red Messages: they got me in a hot sweat. Till I realised they are rarely fatal. My single biggest issue has never been them. Its been browser crashes corrupting the TW file.

That's the problem. We actually don't know, if the system is in a "fatal state". ... but it could be.

.... So opening the file explorer and create a backup, before the next save may be the best choice. ... I'll probably include this advice.


 

To be honest its the AESTHETICS of the warnings as much as anything that scared me, and likely for others who have no clear idea what is happening.

OK. It should be scary!
 

TBH, I'd rather have a message like ...

      DON'T PANIC.

Good advice!
 

There is a problem but it is likely not a disaster, just a small glitch.

We really cant promise that. .. The internal state, may be broken and the next save may hurt. Especially if users try out 3rd party software. ..

      To be safe, please close the window this TW is in and reopen it.

That's exactly, what should be done.
 

     NOTA BENE: Please make sure that you always regularly backup your TiddlyWiki
      because failures do happen & it would be a great shame if you lost your work.

I like that. Backups are always good.
 

------------------

So the right thing to do is:


      DON'T PANIC. There is a problem but it is likely not a disaster.

• Please open your file explorer and create a backup of your TW file. 
• Don't save, create the backup .. Now!
• After you did the backup, you can save this wiki.
  
• To avoid data loss, please close and reopen the TiddlyWiki.
• Check the content.
  

      NOTA BENE: Please make sure that you regularly backup your data,

      because failures do happen & it would be a great shame if you lost your work.

what do you think. ... To complicated?

-m

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao PMario

Before I reply on your suggested message (I need think about it a little bit first)... I'd like to make an observation ...

I think one of the reasons its not so easy to get the message exactly right is awareness that users are likely, unfortunately, NOT routinely backing-up. So the message of advised steps also has to kinda deal with that. BUT should it? IF we were SURE they were backing up then the message could be a lot simpler I think.

BECAUSE I run redundant backup that detects changes in a TW every 30 minutes or so I would rarely follow your suggested steps. I'd just close (without saving) and re-open & if the problem came back I'd revert to a previous version.

I suppose what I am saying is I don't see why TW creators should have to have the hassle of laying out complex steps because users are lazy about backup. In a way I think they should ASSUME people back-up. But also give alerts, in the "Red Screen", to encourage them to do that if they aren't already.

Backup is universally understood as a basic principle. Its likely one of the most straight-forward concepts you encounter in TW. I don't like to see you developers over-apologise when Users do need to take some ordinary, understandable, responsibility too.

I hope it is clear what I am saying. That whilst reminders of backups are a very good idea, especially in "crash" messages, I'd NOT try to address salvage in every post-crash scenario ultra-carefully. It just gets too complicated. IF you had decent recent backups already you'd simply bail out.

Best wishes
Josiah

[Jed Carty]

I don't think that it is too complex considering that most of the time you have to be digging around inside tiddlywiki a bit to get to the RSOD, which means that the target audience will be people who are at least willing to play with how tiddlywiki works.

[Thomas Elmiger]

Hi all

Here’s what I would prefer – something in the direction of:

---
DON’T PANIC. There is a problem but it’s likely not a disaster.

TO BE SURE it is recommended you create a fresh backup of your TiddliWiki right now using your file explorer.
AFTER you did the backup, you can try to save this wiki.

AVOID DATA LOSS: close and reopen this wiki now and check the content. If something is wrong, return to your last backups.

---

Stay safe,
Thomas

[@TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao PMario

My suggestion is this, influenced by the comments below ...
----

DON’T PANIC. There is a problem but it’s likely not a disaster.

To be safe, please ...

1 - Create a backup of your TiddliWiki using file explorer.

2 - See if you can save your TiddlyWiki in the normal way.

3 - Close the TiddlyWiki and then re-open it and see if its okay.

4 - If its not working properly close it and open the latest backup instead.

NOTA BENE: Please make sure that you always regularly backup your TiddlyWiki
because failures do happen & it would be a great shame if you lost your work.

---

Jed commented:

... the target audience will be people who are at least willing to play with how tiddlywiki works.

Thomas Elmiger wrote:

... something in the direction of:

      DON’T PANIC. There is a problem but it’s likely not a disaster.

TO BE SURE it is recommended you create a fresh backup of your TiddliWiki right now using your file explorer.
AFTER you did the backup, you can try to save this wiki.

AVOID DATA LOSS:

close and reopen this wiki now and check the content. If something is wrong, return to your last backups.