Error handling needed in flattened_search

[Jeff Davis]

The flattened_search method in Fielder.pm (used by open-ils.fielder.flattened_search and related) does a pcrud request, but doesn't appear to know how to handle an error response from pcrud.

We received a report that bills were occasionally not appearing in the grid in the patron bills screen. The browser console showed an error calling method open-ils.fielder.flattened_search with the following message:

Can't locate object method "content" via package "OpenSRF::DomainObject::oilsMethodException" at /usr/local/share/perl/5.22.1/OpenILS/Application/Fielder.pm line 276.

It looks like the pcrud request failed (perhaps due to a timeout, no available pcrud drones, or other transient connection issue). It returned an oilsMethodException response, but the open-ils.fielder method doesn't account for the possibility that it could get that type of response from pcrud. I think flattened_search should inspect the pcrud response to ensure it's not an error before trying to process it. Ideally, grids/displays that use flattened_search results would also give some indication that there was an error, rather than merely showing no results.