[Standalone PC] Confusing error messages when disconnected

[imnasnainaec]

Feeback from Hasso:

When I visit local.thecombine.app on Brave Beta on my Android phone while disconnected, I get a cute message about the server being unavailable; this is good.

When I visit local.thecombine.app on a browser on my computer (I didn’t keep track of where all this occurred, but we used Edge, Firefox, and Chrome on different computers) while disconnected (the browser may or may not have been fully closed since the last time it was connected to the server), I try to log in and get a message that my credentials are invalid. This is confusing.

[imnasnainaec]

The cute message is probably deploy/helm/cert-proxy-server/files/pages/index.html, which is what you get at local.thecombine.app if the NUC isn't up or your not connected to it AND if you've not previously been connected to it in that browser session.

After you've connect once, the frontend React app will be loaded in the browser and will let you navigate between some pages. But when it tries to ping the backend and fails, the error messages aren't particularly accurate.

[imnasnainaec]

This can be mimicked in a local development build by running the build steps in the README, then scaling back the backend:

kubectl -n thecombine scale --replicas=0 deployments backend

Below are examples of what you might see when the backend is not available after the frontend has loaded.

Navigating to a page (e.g., signup or login):

Entering login credentials and pressing the Log In button (though the button won't even be pressable unless Turnstile verification completed before the disconnection from the backend):

[imnasnainaec]

After further review:

• 500 is not from the frontend unable to reach the backend, but rather the backend unable to reach the database.
• 401/502 should be handled better by login actions (not the general axios intercept).