"Hardware Drivers" displays empty error dialog when not connected to the network

[mrosati]

when driver installer tries to download a driver, it gives an insignificant error and stops the installation. would be much better if the error dialog could inform about the nature of error itself.

[wisd0m (wisd0m)]

This needs to be fixed asap. I have had this happen many times and wonder how a new user might deal with it.

[Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand)]

Just encountered this today. The error box simply says 'Error' with no other information.

[Kevin Hausmann (salema)]

I tried to look into this one and it seems like it originates from jockey/ui.py line 622:

self.error_message('', str(e).splitlines()[-1])

This is supposed to catch a generic SystemError and should probably read something like

self.error_message(self.string_error, str(e))

I am not much of a python programmer, but this should be easy to fix if you know what you are doing. Obviously it would be even better to present a more specific error message depending on the type of exception.

[Andrew (and471)]

Attached is a patch for the jockey trunk branch

I fixed the empty error dialog and made the string more concise by using split('\n') instead of splitlines()

Also in the patch is a change for the jockey-gtk.ui file, it makes the progress dialog not show the text 0% (making it appear as though it was doing nothing

Can this please be applied to the jockey trunk

[Andrew (and471)]

Added branch where problem is fixed, proposed for merge

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Current branch causes regressions, see merge proposal.

[Andrew (and471)]

Okay, fixed my branch, ready for merge

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Merged, thanks! (trunk r575)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package jockey - 0.5.4-0ubuntu1

---------------
jockey (0.5.4-0ubuntu1) karmic; urgency=low

  * New upstream bug fix release:
    - Update tests for openprinting.org changes; LaserJet 3020 does not exist
      any more, replace with DesignJet 3050CP.
    - Handler: Reload module blacklist after installing a driver package,
      since it might ship blacklists.
    - setup.py: Fix DistUtilsExtra version check. (LP: #428337)
    - jockey-gtk: Check for having $DISPLAY at startup to avoid crashes.
      (LP: #204134)
  * ui.py: Fix error message parsing, thanks to rugby471! (LP: #386375)
  * Add data/handlers/dvb_usb_firmware.py: Handler for DVB USB cards which
    need to have the linux-firmware-nonfree package installed. (LP: #223212)

 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:31:45 +0200