Vague error message given on stack name conflict "Error: Stack creation failed."

[Kevin Fox]

rdo havana release.

in horizon, launching a new stack with the name of an existing stack returns only "Error: Stack creation failed.". In the heat-engine logs, you can see the problem:
2014-04-14 11:16:51.900 3945 ERROR heat.openstack.common.rpc.common [-] Returning exception The Stack (kfox-test) already exists. to caller
2014-04-14 11:16:51.900 3945 ERROR heat.openstack.common.rpc.common [-] ['Traceback (most recent call last):\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/heat/openstack/common/rpc/amqp.py", line 461, in _process_data\n **args)\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/heat/openstack/common/rpc/dispatcher.py", line 172, in dispatch\n result = getattr(proxyobj, method)(ctxt, **kwargs)\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/heat/engine/service.py", line 60, in wrapped\n return func(self, ctx, *args, **kwargs)\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/heat/engine/service.py", line 260, in create_stack\n raise exception.StackExists(stack_name=stack_name)\n', 'StackExists: The Stack (kfox-test) already exists.\n']

[Thomas Herve (therve)]

That sounds like the expected behavior.

[Kevin Fox (kevpn)]

This was filed due to a complaint on the mailing list of heat not giving useful error messages in the dashboard. I said I'd report the problems as I saw them. It did not give the real reason for the failure to the user, just in the logs. Therefore, a bug.

[Clint Byrum (clint-fewbar)]

Kevin, that makes sense, but the title of your bug report was entirely non-descriptive of the actual problem you observed, which is why I found myself agreeing with therve until your reply. Please try to make sure the title is indicative of the observed problem, not just the error message.

[Thomas Herve (therve)]

If I use heat client, I get this:

$ heat stack-create -f template.yaml stack1
ERROR: The Stack (stack1) already exists

So it looks like a problem with Horizon? Or is it a problem fixed in icehouse?

[Kevin Fox (kevpn)]

Heh. The irony is, the title was just as descriptive as the string being showed to the user. :/

Sorry. I'll endeavor to be more descriptive in the future.

[Kevin Fox (kevpn)]

kfox@mantis:~/cans$ heat stack-create -f WordPress_2_Instances_Neutron.template zeb-cinder-test
ERROR: The Stack (zeb-cinder-test) already exists.

Yeah, I'm seeing the same thing in havana. So its a horizon-heat bug...

[Steve Baker (steve-stevebaker)]

This looks like a duplicate of bug #1241395, but the proposed fix may not be appropriate for backporting to havana since heat havana didn't have the required clean up of formatting exception details in a json response.

https://review.openstack.org/#/c/87138/

It might be worth backporting this change to havana horizon, using a recent python-heatclient, and see if that improves the situation.