Ambiguous error message when loading topic that you don't have permission to read

AI-generated summary

Ambiguous error message when loading topic without permission: When users attempt to load a topic they don’t have permission to read, Discourse displays a generic error message (@Choonster):

Sorry, we couldn’t load that topic, possibly due to a connection problem. Please try again. If the problem persists, let us know.

This issue affects users with insufficient trust levels or those trying to access private messages they’re not involved in. The problem has been acknowledged as a bug (@codinghorror) and has allegedly been fixed by eviltrout (@zogstrip).

When attempting to load a topic that I don’t have permission to read (either because my trust level is too low or because it’s a private message I’m not involved in), I get the following error message:

This message doesn’t tell me what actually went wrong (I didn’t have permission to view the topic).

I recently encountered this on what.thedailywtf.com when someone linked a topic in the Lounge category (which requires TL3+ to read) from a post in another category. I was only TL2 at the time, so I didn’t have permission to view it and got the above error message when I clicked on the link.

To reproduce this, I created two new accounts and sent a PM from one to the other. When attempting to view this PM on my main account, I got the above error. When attempting to view a topic in the Lounge (TL3+) on one of the test accounts (TL1), I got the same error.

8개의 좋아요

Yeah this is a bug I also mentioned it to @eviltrout.

I believe @eviltrout already fixed it :wink:

https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/5890dae64c7af7ca0c93728a98e25f3bc1195ccc

4개의 좋아요