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Bug 710278 - [Connect to server] Unhelpful and unforgiving on user error or typo
[Connect to server] Unhelpful and unforgiving on user error or typo
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: nautilus
Classification: Core
Component: general
3.10.x
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: Nautilus Maintainers
Nautilus Maintainers
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2013-10-16 15:06 UTC by António Fernandes
Modified: 2016-12-27 15:00 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Description António Fernandes 2013-10-16 15:06:48 UTC 
When hitting "Connect" in the the "Connect to Server" dialog, if users typed the URL wrong, nautilus will punish them to type the whole URL again, with no opportunity to review and fix the address and little or no indication of what was wrong in the first try.

      Steps to reproduce:

Open the "Connect to Server" dialog.
Insert ftp:///ftp.gnome.org/ into the "Server Address" field...
             ^
>            Note the third slash.

... and press "Connect".

      Actual results:

The "Connect to Server" dialog is closed and an error dialog pops up:
   
>        Oops! Something went wrong.
>        Unhandled error message: No hostname specified
>                                                      
>                                                      [   OK   ]

The error dialog is not helpful and pressing the "OK" button will simply close the dialog.

      Expected behaviour:

If connection to the inserted address fails, provide helpful feedback and allow the user to review and edit the address.
Comment 1 Joe Thompson 2014-10-14 08:43:44 UTC 
In addition to the above:

* The dialog does not have any way for the user to discover the supported protocols or how to invoke them.  If I want to transfer a file over an SSH connection, should I use ssh:, sftp: or scp:?  Or something entirely different?  How do I know if connection over SSH is even supported?  The only thing suggested within the dialog itself is smb:.

* In the category of misleading errors, I kept getting a permission-denied error trying to connect to a server on my network.  It turned out that SSH was not even running on the server yet -- it was stuck in a hung boot because of a missing filesystem!  Had the error been something like "Unable to connect to server on port 22" or "Connection refused" or something similar about *connectivity*, I wouldn't have wasted 15 minutes trying to figure out if I was simply invoking the protocol incorrectly (and on that note, see above...).
Comment 2 Alexandre Franke 2016-12-27 15:00:06 UTC 
The dialog has been replaced by the bar at the bottom of the Other locations view. This bar doesn't have the same issue, address remains after failed connection attempt.