Error not surfaced in UI for adding Software automation if software no longer exists

[jmwatts]

Fleet version: 4.62.0
Web browser and operating system: Chrome 131.0.6778.265 running on macOS

---

💥  Actual behavior

Success message is shown "Successfully updated policy automations"

But API response shows error
level=error ts=2025-01-21T16:17:42.757085Z component=http user=admin@fake.com method=PATCH uri=/api/latest/fleet/teams/81/policies/98 took=11.652166ms uuid=25fa6de5-5597-4b16-ab3d-03f14adadd82

Additionally, the software has not been associated with the policy because it does not exist.

🧑‍💻  Steps to reproduce

Will need two browser windows open

1. In the first window, go to /policies/manage and select a Team, Click Add policy, create a new policy and save
2. In the second window, add software (FMA, custom package) and save
3. In the first window, click "Manage automations" >> Install software, click the check box next to your new policy and select the software created in step 2 from the dropdown, don't save yet
4. In the second window, delete the software created in step 2
5. In the first window, click save

🕯️ More info (optional)

N/A

QA plan

• You can see up to 5 errors when making multiple API calls on the install software modal
• The errors can be closed separately
• Navigating to a new page will close all errors
• It is human readable replacing "software_title_id ###" and "team_id ##" string with human readable software name and team name
• See unit tests catch untestable (e.g. rendering whenteam name is missing or software title name is missing)
• Other single flash messages still work as expected

[iansltx]

@jmwatts does the error here result in a 4xx/5xx HTTP response or does the response come back as a 200? Need that info to categorize this as FE vs. BE and point at who to estimate.

[jmwatts]

It's 400 Bad Request @iansltx

[iansltx]

Please add your planning poker estimate with Zenhub @RachelElysia

[RachelElysia]

@noahtalerman @marko-lisica

The error is very generic "Could not update policy automations."

However, during the save process, some policy automations can update (like if the associated software wasn't deleted) while some cannot (like if the associated software was deleted for another policy that was update). Do you want to take into account this edge case into the error message where some promises resolve successfully and some fail?

Here are our current flash messages:

const [
  DEFAULT_AUTOMATION_UPDATE_SUCCESS_MSG,
  DEFAULT_AUTOMATION_UPDATE_ERR_MSG,
] = [
  "Successfully updated policy automations.",
  "Could not update policy automations.",
];

Thinking there could be a third?

[marko-lisica]

@noahtalerman @marko-lisica

The error is very generic "Could not update policy automations."

However, during the save process, some policy automations can update (like if the associated software wasn't deleted) while some cannot (like if the associated software was deleted for another policy that was update). Do you want to take into account this edge case into the error message where some promises resolve successfully and some fail?

Here are our current flash messages:

const [
  DEFAULT_AUTOMATION_UPDATE_SUCCESS_MSG,
  DEFAULT_AUTOMATION_UPDATE_ERR_MSG,
] = [
  "Successfully updated policy automations.",
  "Could not update policy automations.",
];

Thinking there could be a third?

@RachelElysia If I understand backend doesn't return different errors. I assume we return the error above if one or more of the policies isn't updated?

I think we could have a generic error message to cover both cases (one or more failures):

Couldn't update. One or more policy automations failed to update. Please try again.