Following: Improve follow error handling #1978
Merged
Conversation
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
Enhanced error messages when following accounts by providing more specific feedback and preserving the entered profile on redirect. Updated template text for clarity and consistency in the following list UI.
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Pull Request Overview
This PR improves the user experience when following accounts fails by providing more user-friendly error messages and better form handling. The changes replace technical error messages with clearer feedback and maintain the attempted username in the form after failed follow attempts.
- Updates error handling to show a generic, user-friendly message instead of technical WebFinger/ActivityPub errors
- Modifies URL parameter handling to prevent pre-filling usernames on successful follows while re-filling on failures
- Fixes HTML entity encoding inconsistencies in template strings
Reviewed Changes
Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| includes/table/class-following.php | Updates error handling logic and URL parameter management for follow attempts |
| templates/following-list.php | Corrects HTML entity encoding in user-facing text |
obenland
added
the
Skip Changelog
pfefferle
reviewed
Jul 21, 2025
| if ( \is_wp_error( $result ) ) { | ||
| \add_settings_error( 'activitypub', 'followed', $result->get_error_message() ); | ||
| /* translators: %s: Account profile that could not be followed */ | ||
| \add_settings_error( 'activitypub', 'followed', \sprintf( \__( 'Unable to follow account “%s”. Please verify the account exists and try again.', 'activitypub' ), \esc_html( $profile ) ) ); |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
should we maybe (also) change the origin error message to be more desciptive and enduser friendly?
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Yes, I think that would be good
pfefferle
approved these changes
Jul 21, 2025
Sign up for free
to join this conversation on GitHub.
Already have an account?
Sign in to comment
Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.
This suggestion is invalid because no changes were made to the code.
Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is closed.
Suggestions cannot be applied while viewing a subset of changes.
Only one suggestion per line can be applied in a batch.
Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.
Applying suggestions on deleted lines is not supported.
You must change the existing code in this line in order to create a valid suggestion.
Outdated suggestions cannot be applied.
This suggestion has been applied or marked resolved.
Suggestions cannot be applied from pending reviews.
Suggestions cannot be applied on multi-line comments.
Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is queued to merge.
Suggestion cannot be applied right now. Please check back later.
The WebFinger Resource is not accessible.orThe "object" is/has no valid URLare not terribly great error messages. This PR updates the error message when we can't follow an account to something more user-friendly, albeit slightly less detailed.It also improves user experience by re-supplying the attempted username, instead of forcing folks to type it back in again.
Proposed changes: