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Improve error message when library metadata request fails

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#601 0 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
45/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
csharp
Domain
tooling

Research direction

No file or test is named. Start by tracing the library-resolution path that produces "Could not resolve the library" and compare failures for library names, versions, and metadata requests. Done means the error identifies the failed portion or cause instead of using the same generic message for every failure.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

This issue is dedicated to one of the follow-up items in this comment: https://github.com/aspnet/LibraryManager/issues/370#issuecomment-637953775

Functional impact

Error is imprecise about the cause of failure and may lead to user confusion

Minimal repro steps

Happens randomly, no reliable repro
When downloading a library for the first time, if one of the metadata requests fails we get a generic "Could not resolve the library foo@1.2.3".

Expected result

Better indicate the cause of failure or the portion which failed, some ideas:

  • Failed to retrieve file metadata for foo@1.2.3
  • Failed to retrieve library metadata for foo@1.2.3. Received HTTP response 418.
  • Unrecognized library name "foo"
  • Unrecognized library version for "foo@1.2.3"
Actual result

All issues resolving the library and its metadata get a "Could not resolve the library foo@1.2.3" message.

Dominant language
C#
Stars
486
Forks
91
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

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