0011514: if email helper fails, error messaging by helper script / merchant backend not helpful

ID	Project	Category	View Status	Date Submitted	Last Update
0011514	Taler	merchant backend	public	2026-06-12 12:42	2026-06-12 13:18

Reporter	vecirex	Assigned To	vecirex
Priority	none	Severity	tweak	Reproducibility	always
Status	confirmed	Resolution	open
Target Version	1.8

Summary	0011514: if email helper fails, error messaging by helper script / merchant backend not helpful
Description	While the interface has a spinning wheel hanging, such a line is shown: Jun 12 09:46:52 betel taler-merchant-httpd[335330]: s-nail: Cannot save to $DEAD: Permission denied
Additional Information	While fallback email delivery is being tested (and looks functional), it might still happen (in seldom cases) both MTA services fail, then error messaging should be better: this could also be done w/ better error handling (i.e., additional messages) in the helper script, thus not having to touch the merchant backend on this.
Tags	No tags attached.

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2026-06-12 12:42	vecirex	New Issue
2026-06-12 12:43	vecirex	Additional Information Updated
2026-06-12 13:16	Christian Grothoff	Assigned To	=> Christian Grothoff
2026-06-12 13:16	Christian Grothoff	Severity	minor => tweak
2026-06-12 13:16	Christian Grothoff	Status	new => confirmed
2026-06-12 13:16	Christian Grothoff	Target Version	=> 1.8
2026-06-12 13:18	Christian Grothoff	Note Added: 0028872
2026-06-12 13:18	Christian Grothoff	Assigned To	Christian Grothoff => vecirex

Christian Grothoff 2026-06-12 13:18 manager ~0028872	How do you expect the merchant backend to even learn about the failure? I mean, unless the 'mail' command is down, a locally running MTA would forward asynchronously to the smarthosts, and the parent process would never know (until it gets a bounce or such). So I'm not sure what you propose could be realistically implemented here.