Matrix-appservice-irc: "Failed to unlink room. Check the logs for details." is an unusably bad error message

Created on 29 May 2021 · 1Comment · Source: matrix-org/matrix-appservice-irc

Describe the bug
A lot of users are running into this right now when trying to unbridge Freenode rooms. Since we don't run the bridge ourselfs, the only possibility is to contact the Matrix staff.

Many causes may lead to this error message, but many are trivial. And there is no distinction. For example, simply getting the syntax of the command wrong or mistyping the room's name may lead to the same error message. This is wasting everybody's time.

Expected behavior
The error message contains a maximum of information about what went wrong, and why. Referring to the logs must only be used on internal errors that the bridge cannot resolve itself without operator help, as a last resort. Expected possible failure modes that should be displayed to the user correctly may include:

Matrix channel does not exist
IRC network is not bridged
IRC channel does not exist
Channel is not managed by the bridge
Matrix channel is not bridged to that IRC channel
Insufficient permission (requires at power level >= XY)
Internal error (please see the logs and/or contact the bridge operators)

Additional context
BridgeVersion: 0.26.0

Source

piegamesde

👍7

Most helpful comment

As I am being hit by https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/17483 I am not able to use the manage integrations menu and was happy to notice the !unlink command. I failed at reading the instructions several times and got hit by a lot of strange errors as a result, instead of a pointer to what I am doing wrong.

The syntax told was: !unlink !room:example.com irc.example.net #foobar : Unlink an IRC channel from a Matrix room. You need to be a moderator of the Matrix room or an administrator of this bridge., but what I did was:

Screenshot of improper use

The first couple of commands could have told me that I am not giving all necessary parameters and then switch the error to me omitting the channel name. In the end I have no idea what I am doing wrong or what is the problem, which is the issue in the subject.