[Search] `search:timeout` error toast is easy to miss

[Dosant]

Kibana version: 8.1 and older

Description of the problem including expected versus actual behavior:

Currently, we have a search:timeout (default is 10 minutes) which is a client-side timeout that aborts long-running searches that run beyond this timeout.

The timeout error experience is slightly different per every app as it is handled by an app, but also search service presents a toast with Search Timeout message suggesting to increase the timeout.

For example, this timeout on a dashboard would look like this:

The problem with this is that we heavily rely on that toast to inform users about what happened, but the toast auto-disappears after 10 seconds and users who waited for more than 10 minutes would likely be away from the Kibana page and would miss that information. This can be very confusing and this is what happened here: https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/issues/84995

Possible solutions:

• Improve error state:
  • Make timeout toast never go away automatically, or
  • Have more info about the error inlined and not rely on the toast, or
• Remove that search:timeout completely https://github.com/elastic/kibana/issues/94912 https://github.com/elastic/kibana/issues/106400

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-app-services (Team:AppServicesSv)

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-data-discovery (Team:DataDiscovery)

[kertal]

not moving to icebox, because if we remove search session, we should work on this UI

[kertal]

Here's the message:

https://github.com/elastic/kibana/blob/b6287708f687d4e3288851052c0c6ae4ade8ce60/src/plugins/data/public/search/search_interceptor/timeout_error.tsx#L32-L45

[kertal]

here's where the display is triggered:

https://github.com/elastic/kibana/blob/7b81bcf60a7fbc287fdfe2aa6b44009b04024229/src/plugins/data/public/search/search_interceptor/search_interceptor.ts#L649-L654

[kertal]

this could use a custom toastLifeTimeMs

https://github.com/elastic/kibana/blob/b6287708f687d4e3288851052c0c6ae4ade8ce60/packages/core/notifications/core-notifications-browser/src/types.ts#L37-L46

so users don't have to keep their eyes on the screen all the time to make sure they don't miss this notification

[davismcphee]

@kertal That definitely sounds like a good start at least. The suggestion to inline more info in the panels seems reasonable too.

[kertal]

i would even consider this as a something pepper-cutty ... :)

[kertal]

I leave the typo here : pepper 🌶 :D