Recipe Import Server Error

_aj
_aj
edited January 2023 in Bug Reports

Hi there, new to cronometer. Not sure if this has been reported before, I have searched but couldn't find anything that matches exactly. I don't know if this is the right place to report this or if any of the cronometer team reads or takes up these bug reports but anyway,

The recipe importer more often than not fails if a user attempts to paste anything into the Notes field (such as recipe directions) which has characters that the server doesn't like.

Today it was the text 1/2 that caused the error. Looks like when I pasted the text, the browser converted the characters 1 and / and 2 into a 1/2 unicode glyph (might be wrong) which the server didn't like but either way, the upshot is I am presented with a meaningless "Unexpected Error" dialogue and then the page redirects me back to the recipe list page thus negating and losing any changes I may have made to the recipe ingredients or notes before clicking save changes. I cannot stress how infuriating this is if you have manually amended the ingredients list and notes spent time on it before clicking save only to find everything you have done has been lost.

As a web developer of over 25 years I realise it can be sometimes tricky to handle unexpected user data (although It should (is) not be difficult to handle escaping these characters before saving them to your database) however in my opinion it would be far better if the error were 'gracefully' handled and indeed the page was reloaded with the same data and a user message to the effect there was an error in that particular part of the page (ingredients, notes etc). This would then allow the user to correct the information and try again rather than having to start fresh each time. This also happens if you edit an existing recipe and paste something into notes.

So far I have tried to import / edit three recipes. Of the three two have failed when I tried to save so clearly not an impressive record so far and I feel the whole function seems to be quite fragile if the smallest thing such as this is not handled correctly.

Thanks for reading.