RSOE in older version: worth reporting?

[Scott_Sauyet]

Should I raise an issue on GitHub for a red-screen error that happens in 5.2.5, but not the recent 5.3.0? Does it matter that it’s caused by a simple syntax error, relatively easy to find and trivial to fix?

Background

For stupid reasons not worth discussing right now, at work, I’m stuck on Tiddlywiki version 5.2.5.

Last week I ran into a red screen of embarrassment. I was able to fix it – just an error in my filter syntax – but then today, something led me to an old topic and this post by our illustrious leader:

@jeremyruston

JS errors are, by definition, a bug in the core. It is not supposed to be possible to induce a red screen of embarrassment purely in wikitext so it would be worth chasing this down.

You can see the error by visiting https://crosseye.github.io/TW5-demos/2023-07-17a/. If you open one of the links under “Document Locations”, it should open fine. (Note this is a highly sanitized version of a proprietary work wiki; you don’t have to understand much of it.)

But if you edit $:/_/pa/templates/SourceType

replacing this line:

<<list-links filter:"[all[tiddlers]source-type<currentTiddler>]" >>

with the version I found had the bug in it:

<<list-links filter:"[all[tiddlers]source-type<currentTiddler>]"> >>

(note the spurious > right before the closing >>), then you will get the RSOE when you try to open any of the Document Source links.

This does not happen in the version upgraded to 5.3.0

[pmario]

@Scott_Sauyet

Should I raise an issue on GitHub for a red-screen error that happens in 5.2.5, but not the recent 5.3.0? Does it matter that it’s caused by a simple syntax error, relatively easy to find and trivial to fix?

You can, but the first question will be, if it still happens in a later version. I did just test v5.2.7 which is the successor of v5.2.5. There is no RSOD there. So it seems to be fixed.

The only way to “patch” v5.2.5 would be with a plugin, that overwrites the offending code in v5.2.5 – So theoretically you could stay with v5.2.5 and still fix the RSOD. But I’m not sure if that problem is patchable with a plugin.

But we do not have the resources to work that way.

[Scott_Sauyet]

@pmario

You can, but the first question will be, if it still happens in a later version. I did just test v5.2.7 which is the successor of v5.2.5. There is no RSOD there. So it seems to be fixed.[…] we do not have the resources to work that way.

That’s what I expected. Thank you for the feedback.