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Maniphest T55010

Generic "An error occurred while changing your watchlist settings" message is unhelpful
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Description

Author: rybec

Description:
I noticed this on the English Wikipedia, which is running MediaWiki version 1.22wmf12 (bbaecbc). While attempting to use the five-pointed star icon to add a page to my watch list, I often see the message:

An error occurred while changing your watchlist settings for "[the page title]".

I've discovered that if I reload the page, the page can be watch-listed successfully. The error never appears when I've just opened the page within a few minutes, but it appears consistently when the page has been open for a long time. I haven't worked out just how long that is, but it's more than ten minutes and less than two days. If the underlying reason isn't known, it would be helpful to suggest the work-around of reloading the page.

Version: 1.22.0
Severity: minor

Details

Reference
bz53010

Related Objects

Event Timeline

• bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Low.Nov 22 2014, 1:56 AM
• bzimport added a project: MediaWiki-Watchlist.
• bzimport set Reference to bz53010.
• bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).
• bzimport created this task.Aug 18 2013, 9:36 PM
Aklapper added a comment.Aug 19 2013, 9:44 AM

Which browser do you use? When this happens it would be interesting to know if there is also any output in the JavaScript error console of your browser.

• bzimport added a comment.Aug 19 2013, 7:10 PM

rybec wrote:

I'm using Firefox 17 on Linux. I restarted it, so I can't reproduce the error just now.

• bzimport added a comment.Aug 24 2013, 7:50 AM

rybec wrote:

There's no Javascript error.

• bzimport added a comment.Aug 24 2013, 8:00 AM

rybec wrote:

I'm guessing the error condition might be an expired edit token.

He7d3r subscribed.Feb 14 2016, 1:59 PM
Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptFeb 14 2016, 1:59 PM
Quiddity edited subscribers, added: Quiddity; removed: • wikibugs-l-list.EditedMay 23 2016, 5:53 PM

I've been getting this consistently in the last few weeks, if I leave a tab open for a few hours, and then click the star.
Webconsole says this, if I use ?debug=true
mw.Api error: http Object { xhr: Object, textStatus: "error", exception: "" } load.php:13318:4

Screenshot-Community Tech-Cross-wiki watchlist - Meta - Mozilla Firefox.png (743×1 px, 156 KB)

(If I click the star again, immediately afterwards, it works properly. So it's not a huge problem, but is odd.))

Quiddity mentioned this in T137208: "Thank"ing opens new page.Jun 7 2016, 7:51 PM
Quiddity added a comment.Jun 8 2016, 12:39 AM

Hmm, i can no longer reproduce this, even after leaving a page open for many hours. Perhaps it was fixed again in the last 2 weeks?
(I did find this old ticket, which might be related T49916: Be more helpful when (un)watching via JavaScript fails due to invalid token, just in case this crops up again.)

Dcljr mentioned this in T189160: adding/removing watchlist pages is failing intermittently.Mar 7 2018, 9:28 PM
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