Cannot be tested

Try this test plugin - screenshots before applying the pull request changes.
plg_updatetest2.zip

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Test does not work on Unix system! - must be filename case, investigating.

I am using windows

Sorted, no change to the above needed, can go ahead with testing.
Appologizes for inconvenience, update server issue, not looked at that for a long time!

With Debug Disabled

With Debug Enabled

PLEASE check your work before submitting it

Changed.

Sorry, copied the changed code across and forgot the use statement.
Failed to check the files changed count - thought I had copied the language text across.

You also forgot to check the language string you used and the string you created.

Retested as: #43321 (comment)

With changes made the message is now:

I am all in favour of meaningfull error messages but they also have to be helpful. In this example the advice is not helpful at all as it means nothing at all to the user. This is a message that is only useful to the original extension developer and is not something that an end user shoudl ever see. Extension developers dont release updates without testing they work do they

Regardless of who is to blame for the error what I propose is better and more useful than what Joomla currently displays.

This is actually not a plugin bug - the plugin is used by and depends on a 3rd party extension, it is that dependency which causes the problem when the update is attempted with the plugin enabled. Could modify such plugins to protect against such errors but I see that as unnecessary code in the plugin when Joomla can handle it more gracefully.

I suppose could add another line to the error message:
"Please contact the extension developer."

Could enhance further by adding contact information from current XML?

The question is. Does the new message help the end user more than the original message. For me the answer is no

The end user is an admin who hopefully knows the extensions installed on their site.

The current error is missleading as it implies it is a bug in the Joomla installer ... which led to me being asked a question which started me on this.

I think that this helps "Please contact the extension developer of the Plugin ... ".
Then I know that it is not a bug in Joomla or in my confirguration and don't waste time with debugging.

@chmst the problem is that according to @BrainforgeUK the problem is not with the developer of this plugin but with the developer of a completely different extension upon which it depends - so which extension developer am I going to contact? For me that is not the problem. The problem is that the extension that is being installed is not checking for the presence of the extension it is dependent upon. ergo nothing sensible can be changed in core to fix an extension developers errors

@brianteeman - thanks, agreed.

there is only so much that Joomla can do. Extension developers need to take responsibility for their own code being installed correctly.

should this PR get test or not?

I do't see why not.
Improves on what is there already but as indicated in previous comments it is not perfect. There can never be a perfect solution.

I do't see why not.

I don't see positive comments. Don't wanna waste my time.

I have tested this item ? unsuccessfully on bb1c6aa

Hi BrainForgeUK, I have really tried to test this during PBF 2024, and I am sorry, but neither pig_updatetest1.zip nor png_updatetest2.zip yield the results that you show/want... perhaps because we are testing it now against Joomla 5.2.0-beta2-dev but couldn't get it to work out ;(

I should specify that I considered this a fail since it did NOT include the path line and just showed the first 2 lines:

Error updating: PLG_BF_MANUAL
Class "hikashopShippingPlugin" not found

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on bb1c6aa

Tested successfully. Seems like a no brainer to me to improve this.

I've tested on J5.1.3 and then there was no path visible (3rd line in the alert) but on 5.2.0-beta2-dev it was fine.

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on bb1c6aa

Works as described.

Thank you for this PR! The new error message has more details, so it helps the website admins understand the issue better when they get such an error.

btw: I've tested this PR successfully on 5.2-dev:

On Joomla 5.1.3 i'm not seeing the path. I tested it both on a localhost and on a live test server.
See attached screenshot:

@TLWebdesign as this PR is for 5.1 and not 5.2 then you should be marking this as an unsuccessful test

I have tested this item ? unsuccessfully on bb1c6aa

On 5.1.3 i'm not getting the path to the file to show.

This pull request has been automatically rebased to 5.2-dev.

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on bb1c6aa

Tested Succesfully on 5.2