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A host can start a quiz that has no questions

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#162 5 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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@chetna123-ch is already working on this.

Since Oct 19, 2026.

Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
78/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
express, postgresql, react, typescript
Domain
backend, frontend

Research direction

Start in apps/frontend/src/screens/LiveQuiz.tsx near the Start Game button (~line 349), which currently only checks participants.length. Find where the session payload the organizer receives on join is built, and add the question count so the button can be disabled with a visible reason. Also check the quiz:start handler and quiz:next-question path that ends empty sessions to see where a server-side guard belongs. Done when an empty quiz cannot be started and the UI states why.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

bug enhancement good first issue help wanted UI & UX

The organizer's Start button in the lobby only guards against having no players:

apps/frontend/src/screens/LiveQuiz.tsx (~line 349):

<button onClick={handleStart} disabled={participants.length === 0} ...>
  Start Game
</button>

Nothing checks that the quiz has any questions.

Starting an empty quiz walks the room through quiz:start → the 3-second "GET
READY!" screen → quiz:next-question with index 0, which finds no question and
immediately ends the session:

if (!sessionId || !questions[questionIndex]) {
    await endQuizSession(sessionId);
    ...
    broadcastToSession(sessionId, 'quiz:ended');
}

Every participant sees "GET READY!" and then, three seconds later, "Quiz
Finished! Congratulations Winners!" with an empty podium. The session is now
COMPLETED in the database, so the host has to create a new one.

The same applies to a quiz whose questions were all deleted, and it fails
identically with 1 participant and 0 questions.

Where to fix it. The lobby does not currently fetch the question list, so
this needs the count available client-side — either included in the session
payload the organizer already receives on join, or fetched separately.

Guarding only in the UI is not quite enough, since the WebSocket message can be
sent directly; a server-side check in quiz:start would be the complete fix.
Frontend-only is still a worthwhile first step — say in your PR which you did.

Definition of done:

  • The Start button is disabled when the quiz has no questions
  • The disabled state explains why, rather than just being greyed out
  • An empty quiz cannot be driven into a COMPLETED state by mistake
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
21
Forks
7
Avg merge
3h 39m
Merged PRs (30d)
16

Getting set up

First steps

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  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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