Column 'avatarUrl' cannot be null

[ranzbak]

Bug description

When some users connect, they need to accept the terms of service, and after that the interface stalls.
After +- 30 seconds the error "Sorry, something went wrong 😓 Error 504" appears.
For other users the tos accept works fine.

I'm runnig a self-hosted installation:

• Rancher 2.5
• RKE v1.19.9
• Kubernetes network layer Flannel
• Gitpod 0.8.0
• Gitlab 13.10.3-ee
• Deployment Helm and Helmfile

gitpod-values.zip

Steps to reproduce

I log in to Gitlab as admin, impersonate on of the users that has the problem, and try to open a Gitpod session.

Expected behavior

When accepting the terms of service, Gitpod continues to the workspace.

Example repository

Sorry, something went wrong 😓
Error 504
Please file an issue if you think this is a bug.

Anything else?

I have searched through the logs of Gitpod, but I can't find a reason why it should not work for some persons.
All users that authenticate on Gitlab, do so via Active directory credentials.

[ranzbak]

Hi,

I found the problem, it seems that accounts without an avatar set in Gitlab, cannot use Gitpod.

This error is in the server log:
QueryFailedError: ER_BAD_NULL_ERROR: Column 'avatarUrl' cannot be null

Adding an avatar to the user his account fixes the problem.

I'm not sure what I should do to allow users without an avatar image to access Gitpod.
A more specific error than '504' might have saved time finding the error, is improved error handling in the planning?

[ranzbak]

Here the whole error:

"error": "QueryFailedError: ER_BAD_NULL_ERROR: Column 'avatarUrl' cannot be null\n    at new QueryFailedError (/app/node_modules/typeorm/error/QueryFailedError.js:27:28)\n    at Query.<anonymous> (/app/node_modules/typeorm/driver/mysql/MysqlQueryRunner.js:207:45)\n    at Query.<anonymous> (/app/node_modules/mysql/lib/Connection.js:502:10)\n    at Query._callback (/app/node_modules/mysql/lib/Connection.js:468:16)\n    at Query.Sequence.end (/app/node_modules/mysql/lib/protocol/sequences/Sequence.js:83:24)\n    at Query.ErrorPacket (/app/node_modules/mysql/lib/protocol/sequences/Query.js:90:8)\n    at Protocol._parsePacket (/app/node_modules/mysql/lib/protocol/Protocol.js:278:23)\n    at Parser.write (/app/node_modules/mysql/lib/protocol/Parser.js:76:12)\n    at Protocol.write (/app/node_modules/mysql/lib/protocol/Protocol.js:38:16)\n    at Socket.<anonymous> (/app/node_modules/mysql/lib/Connection.js:91:28)\n    at Socket.<anonymous> (/app/node_modules/mysql/lib/Connection.js:502:10)\n    at Socket.emit (events.js:315:20)\n    at Socket.EventEmitter.emit (domain.js:483:12)\n    at addChunk (_stream_readable.js:295:12)\n    at readableAddChunk (_stream_readable.js:271:9)\n    at Socket.Readable.push (_stream_readable.js:212:10)\n    at TCP.onStreamRead (internal/stream_base_commons.js:186:23)",

[AlexTugarev]

Hi @ranzbak! Thanks for reporting!
It's strange that the self-hosted GitLab doesn't return any avatar URL, as it usually does even if a user didn't upload an image file.
Anyway this sounds like it can be fixed in Gitpod as well.

[ranzbak]

Thanks, let me know when the fix has been merged, so I can roll out the fix.
It's less than ideal to instruct people to set an avatar, if they want to use Gitpod.

[JanKoehnlein]

@AlexTugarev are you still on this or should we take over?

[AlexTugarev]

@JanKoehnlein 🙏🏻 please go ahead and thanks 💯

[corneliusludmann]

Unfortunately, I'm not able to reproduce this. Our self-hosted GitLab instance seems to set an avatar for each new user.

However, I think this change (7be8e08) would make sense in general and would also help to solve this particular problem:

diff --git a/components/gitpod-db/src/typeorm/transformer.ts b/components/gitpod-db/src/typeorm/transformer.ts
index 68a74d3c..7aa22ae9 100644
--- a/components/gitpod-db/src/typeorm/transformer.ts
+++ b/components/gitpod-db/src/typeorm/transformer.ts
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ import { EncryptionService } from "@gitpod/gitpod-protocol/lib/encryption/encryp
 export namespace Transformer {
     export const MAP_EMPTY_STR_TO_UNDEFINED: ValueTransformer = {
         to(value: any): any {
-            if (value === undefined) {
+            if (value === undefined || value === null) {
                 return '';
             }
             return value;

Alternatively, we could check here for null:

gitpod/components/server/src/gitlab/gitlab-auth-provider.ts

Line 76 in dba6a37

const { id, username, avatar_url, name, email } = result;

@AlexTugarev What do you think?

[ranzbak]

Looks like the patch that should solve this :-)

[AlexTugarev]

@corneliusludmann, any idea why avatar_url is not present? I have not found a way to disable that.

It's too bad, that the typings are not in sync with the API service.

[corneliusludmann]

@corneliusludmann, any idea why avatar_url is not present? I have not found a way to disable that.

No, was not able to reproduce. Tried gitlab.com and our self-hosted GitLab.

[corneliusludmann]

@ranzbak The issue is solved in the main branch and will be deployed by the end of the month. Thanks for your patience.