User scenarios in case Online Editor is unavailable

The removal of the Enable Online Editing and Save Online Asset automatic actions starting with WorldServer 11.7.1 has led to certain atypical situations that users may encounter when trying to complete, cancel, unclaim, import or export tasks when Online Editor is unavailable. Knowing what causes them or why they occur can help you troubleshoot potential issues more easily.

Scenario 1: Canceling projects on the WorldServer 11 interface

A user tries to cancel a project from the Project Groups page while Online Editor is unavailable. For example, a project manager tries to cancel a project which contains 50 tasks, each task having a corresponding online asset; 40 of them are canceled successfully, after which Online Editor becomes unavailable and the other 10 are no longer canceled because the Save Online Asset background job cannot be executed.
  • A background job is executed every time a user cancels a project (Assignments > Background Jobs on both the WorldServer 11 interface and the Classic interface).
  • The job passes through an intermediate status (Canceling in progress) before the execution.
  • If the cancel action fails for at least one task and Online Editor is unavailable, the entire background job fails.
  • You can redo the background job after Online Editor is back up and running.
  • You can find details about the specific tasks which have failed in the execution logs of the background job.
  • On the Tasks page, the tasks in the project can have two possible step statuses: Canceled (if they were canceled successfully) or In progress (if they could not be canceled).
  • The cancel action uses a retry mechanism. As a result, it might take a while for the background job to be displayed in the all failed jobs list because, even though Online Editor might be unavailable, the background job will be retried 20 times. Users cannot see this on the interface.

Scenario 2: Completing projects on the WorldServer 11 interface

A user tries to complete a project from the Project Groups page. Online Editor is unavailable, the tasks are all in the Translate step, and each task has a corresponding online asset. At least one task fails as a result of Online Editor being unavailable. Given that human steps cannot go into Auto Error, there are two possible options when users are unable to complete a step:
  • All throughout the execution of the background job, the tasks will have an intermediate status: Moving to next step.
  • If the background job fails, leaving certain tasks uncompleted (due to Online Editor being unavailable or to other potential causes), the tasks which could be completed progress to the next step, whereas the uncompleted ones remain in their current step. The background job fails (Unable to move to the next step), but there is no entry in the task history for those tasks. Users must check the execution logs of their background jobs. At this point, they can no longer complete the project from the Project Groups view because the tasks are in different workflow steps. Instead, they must complete each failed task separately from the Tasks view. If Online Editor is still unavailable, an error message is displayed. Otherwise, the tasks progress to the next step.

Scenario 3: Completing and canceling tasks on the Classic interface

A user tries to complete or cancel multiple tasks from the Tasks page. Online Editor is unavailable and each task has a corresponding online asset. In this case, a generic message is displayed in a window, stating that one or more tasks could not be completed or canceled because Online Editor was unavailable.

Scenario 4: Unclaiming tasks

A user tries to unclaim multiple tasks which have corresponding online assets, but Online Editor becomes unavailable. In this case, the user will not be able to unclaim the tasks because there is a risk that content might be lost.

Scenario 5: Custom servlets

There is a human action servlet configured on a human workflow step. A user completes a task and that servlet is called. The task has a corresponding online asset, but Online Editor is unavailable. A stack trace is displayed with a generic message such as: Unexpected exception while executing custom servlet <name>. If you have multiple tasks in a project, but only one of them has a corresponding online asset and you try to complete them all at the same time, no task will progress until Online Editor is up and running again.

Scenario 6: Simulated from the code

Online Editor is unavailable, each task has a corresponding online asset, but the Save Online Asset background job cannot be performed. At this point, two types of issues need to be taken into consideration: the ones related to Online Editor (for example, if the Online Editor services are down) and other exceptions, which may be content-related (for example, if a certain tag is missing). For the latter:
  • If a user tries to open the task in Browser Workbench, a generic Unexpected problem message might be displayed.
  • If a user tries to open the task in Online Editor, the task will likely be opened successfully, allowing the user to try to fix the content-related issue.
For complete, cancel, and unclaim actions, the Unexpected problem message is ignored to allow users to advance.

Scenario 7: Exporting and importing tasks

A user tries to export a task. The task has a corresponding online asset, but Online Editor is unavailable. The following message is displayed: This asset cannot be exported because Online Editor is not available for Task #{0}. Please make sure all the services are working and retry. In case the user tries to export multiple tasks, the tasks which had not been previously opened in Online Editor are exported (assuming that there are no other errors such as Claimed by other user). There are multiple validations in place for each task. If a validation is not passed, the export process is stopped. The validation related to Online Editor is the last one.

If the task has a corresponding online asset and the Online Editor services are up and running, but Online Editor is still unavailable, the following message is displayed: This asset cannot be exported. An unexpected error has occurred while attempting to save online asset. Please contact your system administrator. This also applies when selecting multiple tasks.

Scenario 8: Switching between editors

A user opens a task in Online Editor. The Online Editor tab remains open. The user then opens the same task in Browser Workbench. When the user goes back to Online Editor, note the following behavior:
  • If the user tries to confirm a segment, a generic Online Editor error message is displayed.
  • If the user tries to refresh the page, a specific error message which indicates possible causes is displayed.