JS alert when requesting recipe build

[Jonathan Lange]

I just requested a build using the "Build now" functionality and was told that there had been a server error and that I should contact the administrators. I asked on #launchpad and only encountered expressions of alarm.

 1. I had just pushed up a new revision of lp:testtools
 2. I went to the lp:testtools page and clicked on the link to the 1 recipe
 3. I clicked "Build now"
 4. The spinner spun for a bit, and then displayed the alert seen in the attached screenshot

Note that there was no OOPS code. Repeated attempts to "Build now" gave the same result: no obvious sign of success and a JS alert telling me of a server error. After waiting a few minutes, it appeared that the request to build now actually was successful, as new versions of testtools have been built.

I cannot guarantee that these steps would reproduce the problem.

In addition to the very fact of the error, the contents of the error message are unhelpful. No method is given by which to contact server administrators, and there is very little information to give them on the off-chance that you do find them.

[Deryck Hodge (deryck)]

I'm going to mark this critical. My assumption is that there is an OOPS and we just are giving the number in the error. If investigation turns up that it's not an OOPS and less serious than it seems, someone can re-prioritize this bugtask.

[Henning Eggers (henninge)]

I split off the missing error reporting into bug 824435. Once that is fixed we have to wait for the next occurrence to see what really is happening here.

[William Grant (wgrant)]

The OOPS probably occurred because it was trying to build for Karmic, which was obsolete at the time of the request. That exception is now correctly handled.