improve messaging when POST /api/v1/setup fails

[roperzh]

Fleet version: 4.18.0

🧑‍💻  Expected behavior

If something goes wrong during the Fleet setup, I get a helpful message.

💥  Actual behavior

The setup wizard silently goes back to the first step if POST /api/v1/setup fails for any reason.

This might happen in environments where there's a proxy between the UI and the server API, but the easiest way to reproduce is to block the URL from devtools.

Here's a video demonstrating the problem:

Screen.Recording.2022-08-19.at.16.58.59.mov

[xpkoala]

@roperzh Do you have any more information on this one? Do you have steps for reproducing?

[roperzh]

I have updated the issue description with more context and a video demonstrating the issue.

[xpkoala]

@roperzh Thanks!
@lukeheath Makes sense to surface an error in this situation?

[lukeheath]

Yep, there is a TODO in the code for this.

We should be making a call to renderFlash like:

renderFlash("error", `We were unable to configure your Fleet instance. Please notify your system administrator.`);

@noahtalerman ^ Thoughts on error message?

[ghernandez345]

@noahtalerman @mike-j-thomas i've put together a quick error message implementation. how do we feel about this?

[roperzh]

I have no data to back this up, but I believe that more often than not the user doing the setup will actually be the administrator? maybe something on the lines of "please ensure the Fleet server can be reached" with a link to either the FAQ or the debugging guide?

[noahtalerman]

I agree that we can improve the “Please notify your system administrator” instruction.

please ensure the Fleet server can be reached

@roperzh I think we're on the right track here. I think we can clarify "Fleet server can be reached." What does this mean?

[roperzh]

I think we're on the right track here. I think we can clarify "Fleet server can be reached." What does this mean?

@noahtalerman Sorry for the lack of clarity here! it means that the API endpoints can be accessed by the UI, eg: if you have a firewall or a proxy between the Fleet server and the UI, you might not be able to "reach" the server (which we have seen a couple of times.)

does that help clarify things?

[ghernandez345]

👍🏽 updated the copy

[xpkoala]

I'm not entirely sure if the error modal is out of place, but it does look like there is less space between the icon flow at the top and the registration fields that a user interacts with. Do you have any thoughts on this one @ghernandez345 ?

Would that have been touched with this fix?

[ghernandez345]

@xpkoala looked at the code and for some reason the logo was made smaller. That was the only change though on the styles of this page. I'll make the logo larger again

The spacing between the breadcrumbs and the form was not changes and the way it works is that the spacing grows and shrink with the height of the browser viewport. So it will not always look the same depending on how high your browser window is.