Critical error handler needs to offer backup troubleshooting instructions in addition to email

[tobifjellner]

​https://build.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/wp-includes/class-wp-fatal-error-handler.php?marks=173#L173 may show the message
The site is experiencing technical difficulties. Please check your site admin email inbox for instructions.
However: there are various reasons a rightful admin may not receive that email and therefore won't be able to follow those instructions.

Suggestion: Simply add "Or follow the debugging instructions in ​https://wordpress.org/support/article/debugging-in-wordpress/" (link should be translatable!)

This change needs for sure to be done in WP 5.3, but would be good to have already in a point release to 5.2 (and could could be seen as an error introduced with WP 5.2 – This particular message has generated a lot of questions over in the support forums.)

[SergeyBiryukov]

Thanks for the patch, @dkarfa! Just noting that here is not a great link text for accessibility reasons, and should not be a standalone string. I'd suggest linking debugging instructions instead.

[dkarfa]

Welcome, @SergeyBiryukov I made the change and update the patch.

[Hareesh Pillai]

Minor change in capitalisation

[garrett-eclipse]

Re-use the 'Read about debugging in WordPress.' string and link from class-wp-site-health.php for this implementation

[garrett-eclipse]

Hello, thanks for the initial patches @dkarfa & @hareesh-pillai

I've uploaded 47681.2.diff to address this issue by reusing the strings and link setup found in class-wp-site-health.php.

I went this direction for a few reasons;

• Doesn't introduce new strings.
• Applies to both of the messages, original patch only applied to the $message when is_protected_endpoint()
• Adds the external link icon, security noopener and accessibility text
• Uses string placeholders properly with sprintf the original patches had placeholders but no printf function to apply them.
• Drops the repetitive debugging instructions as it was twice in the second patch; once before the link and the second as the link text.

Please review & test. Thanks

[SergeyBiryukov]

In 46151:

Site Health: Add a link to "Debugging in WordPress" support article to fatal PHP error handler's default message.

Props garrett-eclipse, tobifjellner, dkarfa, hareesh-pillai.
Fixes #47681.

[garrett-eclipse]

Thanks for the commit @SergeyBiryukov checking the changeset I noticed the external link icon, security noopener and accessibility text were all dropped. Was that intentional? Do we not want this to open in a new tab like is done for the example same link in Site Health here;
​https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/master/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-site-health.php#L1232-L1237

Appreciated, just want to be sure I understand what convention on links we want to go with moving forward.

Cheers

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to garrett-eclipse:

checking the changeset I noticed the external link icon, security noopener and accessibility text were all dropped. Was that intentional?

Thanks for bringing this up, I should have left a comment :)

In my testing by causing a fatal error in a plugin, neither Dashicons font nor .screen-reader-text styles were loaded, so (opens in a new tab) was displayed in plain text after the full stop, which looked weird.

I'm not sure if target="_blank" is really necessary here. We have a similar message without target="_blank" in _doing_it_wrong()​, so I thought it would make sense to follow the same approach here, since the message is generally displayed in a context where Dashicons and .screen-reader-text styles are not available.

We could probably add them to _default_wp_die_handler() if you think it's necessary.

[garrett-eclipse]

Thanks @SergeyBiryukov I greatly appreciate the follow-up. That makse complete sense and I agree if the dashicons and styles aren't present that does present itself a little weird.

I like this convention it makes sense to me and don't really see the need in _default_wp_die_handler but will leave that open to those with more of an accessibility mind.

Cheers

[rob006]

This patch uses esc_url(), which may not be defined in some cases.

[garrett-eclipse]

Related #49709