Publishing sometimes fail

[Amerlander]

Sometimes I get an error when publishing:

I did not found out what leads to this issue. Once it is there it does not disapear. I usually just delete the data folder and start again - since I am just testing the functions it does not bother me to loose data.

I am happy to share more informations if they are required to find that issue, just let me know.

[joas8211]

Any issues like missing values, error in code, etc. could cause this. Currently everything has to be in a clean state for the publishing to work. That means all blocks, sections, pages, and site must be rendering successfully.

This error, although vague, indicates that there's some problem rendering the home page. I know one very common example scenario where publishing fails similar to this: If you add a field for a block or a section, set value for the field, and modify the code to use the field, then field value is only set for that block or section. The value is not copied to anywhere else. So you need to set value everywhere the field is being used for rendering to work. That means after modifying a block, you need to update all the sections using that block. And the other way around also.

[joas8211]

I'm planning to improve debugging by pointing out the errors as early as possible, and listing them somewhere in UI. Error messages need to be detailed also when publishing the site, and publishing should be more error resistent in general.

These are the changes I'm thinking of making:

• Error indicators for blocks, sections, and pages which opens a error modal detailing all the errors and their origins.
• Publishing site should show the same information about errors.
• Compile blocks when saving them. That way user can resolve the error as soon as the problem is created. And it would happen later on.
• Publishing should allowed by using old blocks that have errors for the new versions. User should be notified about this behavior.

[Amerlander]

I just created a PR that is improving the error messages: #774
It helped me understand what went wrong in my components (mostly using onMount, which gives "Svelte render error: Error: https://svelte.dev/e/lifecycle_outside_component" and can be replaced by $effect rune).

[joas8211]

I'm still keeping this open for the two features that I mentioned:

• Compile blocks when saving them. That way user can resolve the error as soon as the problem is created. And it would happen later on.
• Publishing should allowed by using old blocks that have errors for the new versions. User should be notified about this behavior.