TalkYard rejects email with + character
A blog reader reported that when they try to sign up for TalkYard using a + in their email, TalkYard responds with:
Weird email. Please use a real email address [TyE04HK83]
I tried and was able to reproduce this by trying to sign up with the email test+talkyard@example.com.
A + character is valid in email addresses, and many users use them for mail filtering rules (e.g., mike+talkyard@example.com, mike+discourse@example.com both go to mike@example.com but the + suffix lets me add metadata about the sender).
Additionally, the error message is kind of user-hostile, as the wording suggests the user is deliberately using a fake email address rather than suggesting that they made a mistake. Could the user-facing message just be "Invalid email"?
On the same note, the input fields are a bit user-hostile as well. They tell the user that their email address is invalid before they even have a chance to finish entering it. Could the check be deferred to the blur event rather than checking in the middle of the user typing?
KajMagnus @KajMagnus2023-06-27 14:22:00.521ZAbout
+: Oh yes it's a valid char, I guess I don't know about that back then (when I wrote that code), or I was sleepy. Fixing in the upcoming version.About the error messages: Ok I'll change to "Invalid email" or sth like that. (Hmm yes "Please use a real ..." sounds a bit odd, now when I think about it.)
They tell the user that their email address is invalid before they even have a chance to finish entering it [..] blur event [...]
That's a good idea.
Hmm, I think some errors can be shown directly, namely if typing an invalid / unsupported character in the email address (then that's likely a typo, and one would want to hit Backspace directly).
While other errors can wait until blur. Or maybe if the user is away / inactive for fairly long — so they sees when back that "oh I wasn't done typing the email", hmm.Thanks for the video
- In reply tomichael⬆:KajMagnus @KajMagnus2023-07-13 15:30:19.436Z
This has been fixed now (I should add auto tests too)
Michael Lynch @michaelI think there's been a regression. I tried verifying the fix, and now the submit button is completely disabled, so users can't sign up at all:
KajMagnus @KajMagnus2023-07-18 11:11:34.277ZI couldn't reproduce, not yet at least. This happens if you, in the comments section, click Log In above the comments, and then switch to guest login by clicking just type a name?
If I do that, then the Submit button is first disabled, however once I type two characters in the Name field (min length) it gets enabled.
The email address: When I test (over at mtlynch.io) the Submit button is enabled if there's no email specified, or if it's valid (and
+somethingworks fine).(If I click Reply, type a comment and then "Post reply" and log in after composing, then the Submit button is enabled directly. A bit inconsistent)
Can I post test comment(s) over at your blog? What blog post page did you test from?
(What do you use for recording screencasts?)
I tried in Chrome and FF Private Browsing. There aren't any browser plugins activated in FF Private Browsing?
You don't happen to have kept an old browser page open, for long, > a week or so? But I don't see how that could matter, since the login popup gets loaded right now from the server.- Michael Lynch @michael
I was trying on Firefox 114. I did an update to Firefox 115, and it went away. That probably didn't make a difference, but maybe it knocked something out of cache?
When it was failing, this error popped up in the JS console:
Uncaught (in promise) Error: Minified React error #200; visit https://reactjs.org/docs/error-decoder.html?invariant=200 for the full message or use the non-minified dev environment for full errors and additional helpful warnings. render https://c1.ty-cdn.net/-/assets/v0.2023.008/slim-bundle.min.js:10 startMainReactRoot https://c1.ty-cdn.net/-/assets/v0.2023.008/slim-bundle.min.js:10 renderPageInBrowser https://c1.ty-cdn.net/-/assets/v0.2023.008/slim-bundle.min.js:10But now the issue is gone, and I've confirmed your fix. Thanks!
- KajMagnus @KajMagnus2023-07-18 11:49:37.204Z
Ok :- )
(The browser cache? yes maybe, hmm, at the same time, the JS & CSS links use asset versioning ... Except for
/-/blog-comments.min.jswhich instead has a pretty short cache time, but it's not used in the login popup, hmm, oh well.)Thanks for the error log message — it looks harmless, & I added a note about removing it. (Seems as if Ty looks for somewhere to render a page, but that won't work in the login popup.)
- Progresswith handling this problem