Server Errors(HTTP 5XX) not handled in UI

[Lplenka]

Since today(06/03/2017) we witnessed the server(chat.zulip.org) was down
Currently in electron app there is no support to display 5XX HTTP status code i.e. server errors , so if server is down currently it just shows a clueless blank screen.After around a minute this is shown

This error page was shown very late,there should be support to show such error as soon as user clicks the connect button.
-Operating System : Linux Mint 18.1
-Zulip-Version : 1.4.15

[timabbott]

I think that's actually just what the website did as well at the time; this is what happens when a server is completely off the Internet unexpectedly.

[Lplenka]

@timabbott yes you are right , but in electron app this screen appears literally after a minute ,while in browser you can see the loading icon spinning , they at least know something is wrong server side , but in electron app user is completely clueless for that span of time due to the blank screen, I think we should add support in UI to handle this because our ultimate aim is a rich user experience by proper error handling too.

I hope I am clear @timabbott @akashnimare

[timabbott]

Ahh, I see what you mean; yeah we should have some sort of loading indicator ...

[Lplenka]

@timabbott I think we can handle this error by keeping a check on server response status code (especially 5XX errors)and adding a loading indicator.

I would like to work on this

@zulipbot claim

[zulipbot]

Congratulations, @Lplenka, you've successfully claimed your first issue! Since you're a new contributor, you now have pull (read-only) access to this repository.

Please review our code contribution guidelines and sign the Dropbox Contributor License Agreement before opening any pull requests for any issues that you're working on.

Also, if you haven't done so already, please join us on the Zulip development server at chat.zulip.org! Our community of developers use chat.zulip.org as our primary communication forum for developing Zulip; you can read more about the chat.zulip.org community in our documentation.

Note: Depending on your notification settings, granting you the permission in GitHub's model that allows you to be assigned issues by zulipbot may result in making you a "watcher" on this repository, which means that you'll get notifications for every issue and pull request in this repository; for a large repository like zulip/zulip, that means receiving over 100 emails per day. If you don't want to receive notifications unless you're actually involved with the issue (which is usually the right choice for large projects), you should unwatch this repository.

[Lplenka]

@akashnimare @timabbott a loader page is possible till the main window completely loads but
I think it will need two windows one main window that will be hidden loading the web page server and the loader window will be visible till the main window loads compeletly.

[zulipbot]

Hello @Lplenka, you claimed this issue to work on it, but this issue hasn't been updated for a week. Are you still working on this issue?

If so, please update this issue by leaving a comment on this issue to let me know that you're still working on this issue within 3 days, or else I'll automatically remove your assignment from this issue.

If you've decided to stop working on this issue, simply comment @zulipbot abandon to abandon this issue so someone else can claim it and continue from where you left off.

Thank you for your understanding and your valuable contributions to Zulip!

[Lplenka]

@akashnimare I have added a function which checks for server status code every time some one connects or switches to a new server. If the server status is 5XX user gets the error dialog box informing about error, so he/she doesn't have to see a clueless white screen.

I think this much fixes this issue.
Any further suggestions are welcome