"Create Invite" shows wrong error message when offline #204

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2026-04-15T13:35:14Z

DeveshSingh commented

2026-04-15 13:35:14 +00:00

When a user is offline, the "Create an Invite" modal incorrectly displays:

"Oops! It looks like you're not a member of this relay."

This is misleading because the user is a member — the request simply failed due to no network connectivity.

Expected Behavior:
Show a network-aware message like:

"Unable to reach the relay. Please check your connection and try again."

Root Cause:
In SpaceInvite.svelte, the component checks $authError (from deriveRelayAuthError) to decide what to show. However, this flag gets set to true for any failed request — including offline failures — so offline errors are incorrectly treated as "not a member" errors.

When a user is offline, the "Create an Invite" modal incorrectly displays: "Oops! It looks like you're not a member of this relay." This is misleading because the user is a member — the request simply failed due to no network connectivity. Expected Behavior: Show a network-aware message like: "Unable to reach the relay. Please check your connection and try again." Root Cause: In SpaceInvite.svelte, the component checks $authError (from deriveRelayAuthError) to decide what to show. However, this flag gets set to true for any failed request — including offline failures — so offline errors are incorrectly treated as "not a member" errors.

Screenshot 2026-04-15 190131.png

245 KiB

DeveshSingh commented

2026-04-15 13:35:41 +00:00

Hi @hodlbod , i want to work on this issue

DeveshSingh commented

2026-04-15 13:52:50 +00:00

In SpaceInvite.svelte, I added navigator.onLine state tracked via window online/offline events. Now the template checks !isOnline before $authError, showing "You appear to be offline" instead of the misleading "not a member of this relay" message when the user has no network connection.

Screenshot 2026-04-15 192024.png

276 KiB

userAdityaa commented

2026-04-15 14:18:43 +00:00

Good catch @DeveshSingh, the issue is real, but your navigator.onLine logic seems to be a decent quick fix, but

navigator.onLine is heuristic. It can still be true while relay is unreachable (DNS issues, captive portal, relay down, partial connectivity), so wrong messaging can still happen.
See this: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/onLine

and also from the image you have shared, make the actual error text to be center aligned, that will feel good UI-wise.

Good catch @DeveshSingh, the issue is real, but your `navigator.onLine` logic seems to be a decent quick fix, but `navigator.onLine` is heuristic. It can still be true while relay is unreachable (DNS issues, captive portal, relay down, partial connectivity), so wrong messaging can still happen. See this: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/onLine and also from the image you have shared, make the actual error text to be center aligned, that will feel good UI-wise.

DeveshSingh commented

2026-04-15 15:43:04 +00:00

Good catch @DeveshSingh, the issue is real, but your navigator.onLine logic seems to be a decent quick fix, but

navigator.onLine is heuristic. It can still be true while relay is unreachable (DNS issues, captive portal, relay down, partial connectivity), so wrong messaging can still happen.
See this: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/onLine

and also from the image you have shared, make the actual error text to be center aligned, that will feel good UI-wise.

On it @userAdityaa

Good point — I moved away from relying on navigator.onLine and now classify errors based on request failures (including timeout). Auth errors are only shown when explicitly detected, and other cases fall back to a generic error.
And I have centered the error message.
@userAdityaa

> > Good catch @DeveshSingh, the issue is real, but your `navigator.onLine` logic seems to be a decent quick fix, but > > > > `navigator.onLine` is heuristic. It can still be true while relay is unreachable (DNS issues, captive portal, relay down, partial connectivity), so wrong messaging can still happen. > > See this: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/onLine > > > > and also from the image you have shared, make the actual error text to be center aligned, that will feel good UI-wise. > > On it @userAdityaa Good point — I moved away from relying on navigator.onLine and now classify errors based on request failures (including timeout). Auth errors are only shown when explicitly detected, and other cases fall back to a generic error. And I have centered the error message. @userAdityaa

DeveshSingh was assigned by hodlbod

2026-04-15 21:04:11 +00:00

hodlbod closed this issue

2026-04-17 18:25:27 +00:00

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Reference: coracle/flotilla#204