Users are discussing a very scary warning message that appears when running ./launcher cleanup in Discourse. The message warns of removing stopped containers, unused networks, unassociated images, and build cache, causing concern among inexperienced users about potential data loss. gigperformer and tobiaseigen suggested adding a clarifying message to alleviate fears. Falco noted that the message originates from Docker, not Discourse. supermathie proposed adding a warning that the cleanup may affect other containers or images on the server. gigperformer emphasized the importance of clear communication to non-technical users, as Discourse is often the “forward-facing” application, and issues may be misattributed to it.
I just have to point out that this warning message is very scary if one does not deeply understand how discourse works. At the very least, there should be a message above that basically mentions to what This refers so you know that it’s (probably) ok to continue!
WARNING! This will remove:
- all stopped containers
- all networks not used by at least one container
- all images without at least one container associated to them
- all build cache
Are you sure you want to continue? [y/N] y
I have had the same reaction. It is hard to not worry that something terrible might happen, if you are not experienced. For example, if my container is not running for some reason will it delete my whole forum?
That message comes from Docker and not from Discourse.
But the action is being triggered as part of a Discourse upgrade so perhaps Discourse should still display a message to let one know what’s going on.
That message should be scary IMO - the user may be running other containers or have other images which they may want.
We could perhaps add something like "If Discourse is the ONLY thing on this server, this is probably safe.
Indeed – this is the problem of Discourse being the “forward facing” application. Even though the actual problems are elsewhere, users just know about Discourse so everything they see is attributed to Discourse.
I have the same problem with an application I support - even though crashes are generally due to faulty 3rd party add-ons, it looks like our application broke so we have to be very clear as to what’s going on.
Anything you can do to help the non-sophisticated user understand what’s going on will be much appreciated, I’m sure.