Notification: Broken Jetpack connection banner doesn't dismiss

[ebinnion]

Quick summary

See p1715718239728809-slack-C029GN3KD

The summary of that thread is that some set of users see a notification that describes the Jetpack connection as being broken because the plugin is deactivated. But, even after fixing the connection, the notice doesn't dismiss.

In working with an HE on this issue, we fixed the issue by clearing IndexedDB and localStorage from the application tab of Chrome, after we noticed that the issue only showed for the HE in Chrome and not in Safari.

In talking to @supernovia, she suggests that somewhere around 2-3% of her interactions are this and that they ask users to log out and back in.

Steps to reproduce

Based on the reports, I would imagine that this is due to an intermittent connection issue that then persists. Based on that, I'm not sure what the repro steps are. This is how I would start though.

1. Break the Jetpack connection by going to /_cli for an atomic site and remove the blog or user connection secret
2. Load WordPress.com
3. Verify the notice shows
4. Fix the connection in Jetpack debug
5. Verify the notice still shows

What you expected to happen

The notice to disappear after the connection is broken.

What actually happened

The notice persists and requires HE intervention and the user logging out.

Impact

Some (< 50%)

Available workarounds?

Yes, easy to implement

Platform (Simple and/or Atomic)

No response

Logs or notes

No response

[zaguiini]

Maybe it's not a false positive. See: https://github.com/Automattic/dotcom-forge/issues/7234#issuecomment-2116409760

[supernovia]

@zaguiini

Maybe it's not a false positive. See: Automattic/dotcom-forge#7234 (comment)

We definitely run into actual broken connections to fix, too, and it would be good to address the issues behind those.

But there are also quite a few cases where the user will see connection errors even when a debug reveals the connection is fine. If the user tries with another browser or an incognito window with these cases, it works, so in these cases it's something stuck in the browser itself. Logging out and back in seems to fix it, but I'm not sure folks would think to try that in their troubleshooting steps, so the error can be frustrating for them.

[mrfoxtalbot]

Related? #79324

[paulopmt1]

We're seeing a similar case on A4A sites, but the root cause shouldn't be the same. Maybe the reason why it doesn't clear the error message is the same bug.

[supernovia]

Thanks @paulopmt1 - we just ran into that today in our WooCommerce tinkering at a meetup; same situation! And yes the error is stuck. That must be what's causing us to get new users with this error when everything seems fine.

[paulopmt1]

Thanks for sharing one more example of that @supernovia.

when everything seems fine

I also noticed that everything was working as expected.
The responsible for keeping the error visible seems to be a cache issue after a broken connection. We still don't know why the connection breaks in the first place, though.