[Bug]: Create Repository Error Message Isn't Helpful

[weshoke]

What happened?

What actually happened, including error codes if applies.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Open Create Repo Dialog
2. Entire a Storage Namespace for a path that doesn't exist
3. See

message

Expected behavior

"failed to create repository: failed to access storage" while technically correct, doesn't give any insight in to fixing the issue. If the path in the storage doesn't exist, it would be really helpful to make a suggestion as to how to fix it.

I'm coming at this as a new user, so the fact that the path needed to exist wasn't obvious to me since it wasn't mentioned in the documentation. Furthermore, I was using the demo docker compose setup, so I expected things to "just work". When they didn't, I was left wondering if the software just had a lot of issues.

lakeFS version

latest

How lakeFS is installed

Docker

Affected clients

No response

Relevant log output

Contact details

No response

[N-o-Z]

Hi @weshoke,
Thank you for filing this bug.
While I understand your point, I'd like to emphasize some points:

1. The actual path does not need to pre-exist in order to create a repository, however the path you provided in your example is the bucket root. If the bucket doesn't exist we can only rely on AWS's response as to what the issue is.
2. AWS will not tell you if a bucket exists or not, this is a security concern and we follow the same guidelines.

Having said that, if you have any explicit suggestions on how we could improve the error message (considering the limitations), we'd love to get your feedback

[weshoke]

I think the simplest thing would be to point to a URL in the documentation describing potential troubleshooting ideas. If it's not possible to determine precisely why the error happens, any kind of pointer to something that indicates what might be going on would be fantastic.

The way the system works right now, I honestly thought the software was broken/buggy. Why would it not work? As a new user, using the data provided in the hints of the UI, I would expect it to work. Why else would that suggestion be there?

[N-o-Z]

@weshoke, thanks for the clarification!
I have moved this issue to our product team to find the best possible solution to address the issue.

[ozkatz]

@weshoke @N-o-Z thank you - we will add the necessary documentation here as a troubleshooting guide. Closing the issue for now but will update once the docs on this have improved.