Avoid Raising NoMethodError in chat_channels with other_user is not Present

[mstruve]

There are times when a ChatChannel is opened via the controller that a other_user for that chat channel is not present. This causes the below error to be raised when we try to index that chat channel membership and attempt to fetch the channel_image
Honeybadger: https://app.honeybadger.io/fault/66984/f79138e2afe22c7a949dc283ec6beec8
Error:

NoMethodError: undefined method `profile_image_url' for nil:NilClass
profile_image.rb  7 initialize(...)
[PROJECT_ROOT]/app/labor/profile_image.rb:7:in `initialize'
5   def initialize(resource)
6     @resource = resource
7     @image_link = resource.profile_image_url
8     @backup_link = "https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/99mvlsfu5tfj9m7ku25d.png"
9   end

I don't think we should ever be initializing the ProfileImage class with a nil resource so one fix might be to add a guard clause to check for that before initializing the class. It appears we have a lot of safety operators (.&) all over the ChatChannelMembership ActiveRecord model class which would indicate that we don't always expect to find an other_user so this appears to just be a case we forgot to handle.

[anew-bhav]

@mstruve I would like to work on this issue

[rhymes]

@anubhav8421 go ahead and thank you!

[anew-bhav]

It is my first time exploring the dev.to codebase. I was able to setup the environment as defined in the documentation. I have read through the honeybadger issue plus details provided by @mstruve . I understood that we should not call profile_image_url method on resource when it is nil

So if we just use safety operator in resource&.profile_image_url should suffice.

To test and reproduce the issue, please suggest the steps.

[anew-bhav]

@rhymes @mstruve can you please provide your feed back on the above comment

[mstruve]

So if we just use safety operator in resource&.profile_image_url should suffice.

That would probably work, or it might cause other issues when loading the page. I would suggest writing a test to find out.

[rhymes]

hi @anubhav8421, as @mstruve mentioned, the best way to find out for sure is to write a spec about it.

As app/labor/profile_image.rb doesn't have an explicit spec file, you could setup something similar to https://github.com/thepracticaldev/dev.to/blob/master/spec/labor/twilio_token_spec.rb
to test it, for example: spec/labor/profile_image_spec.rb and add a test to see what happens if you pass a user that has no profile_image_url

Let me know if you need further info!

[anew-bhav]

Thanks for the response @mstruve @rhymes I will create a PR soon.

[mstruve]

Fixed by preventing a channel from being created for a single user #7773