Bugzilla – Bug 1731
No help button in "Error: not well formed Invalid token at line (x)
Last modified: 2018-08-20 11:45:59 UTC
There is no help button in the error message dialog for "Error: not well formed Iinvalid token at line (x)" The help buttons are a key new feature - and we do already have a dedicated page in the Manual for this at: https://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/man/Error:_not_well-formed_(invalid_token)_at_line_x It is an issue that recurs frequently on the Forum - thus adding as P2 (but no release note required I'm thinking) Only tested on Beta 01Aug17 on Mac so far - but assume All
This does not appear to be a trivial fix as the error message is just one of about 40 possible error codes from XML_Error. I think the real problem here is that "not well-formed (invalid token)" occurs far too frequently because we do not adequately handle invalid characters in user input (such as track names and metadata). In my opinion, that is the bug that needs fixing, then this enhancement will be largely irrelevant. A fix for the underlying problem has been on offer on GitHub: https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/197 It was also raised on devel@ http://audacity.238276.n2.nabble.com/Properly-handle-supplementary-characters-when-saving-XML-files-td7581230.html
(In reply to Steve Daulton from comment #1) >A fix for the underlying problem has been on offer on GitHub: https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/197 This fix has now been committed - making this error message much less likely to occur. Accordingly, as the root cause appears to have been dealt with, it is now less important I feel that the "?" help button exists on the message dialog - thus I am going to reduce this to P4 ENH
DEVEL - FIX MADE https://github.com/audacity/audacity/commit/afe09bb17292f35599816edbfcb4068f6ecf5ce6 The help link is not specific to the (40 or so different) errors, rather it takes the user to the FAQ page about importing and recovery errors.
(In reply to James Crook from comment #3) Tested on James build audacity 2.3.0jc001 on W10 and on macOS 10.13.3 On both platforms we now get a help button - but this targets the upper level generic page: https://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/man/FAQ:Errors_on_opening_or_recovering_an_Audacity_project But it really should target the full page for this error directly: https://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/man/Error:_not_well-formed_(invalid_token)_at_line_x so it sort of works - but not as well as it should so I am re-opening this. --------------------------------------- Aside: this has always been a rubbishy opaque message with no idea of what it means - but that is a separate issue.
DEVEL - FIX MADE https://github.com/audacity/audacity/commit/67f7ca7d0a3fa34c305e97a3985681478b2cdc0b
Tested on W10 Audacity 2-3-0 20180405-107 and on audacity-macos-nightly-2.3.0-76f72f0.dmg - 28.45 MB | version: 2.3.0--05Apr18 Works as expected now on both platforms - goes drect to the detailed page from the help button
