slides: Multiple UX issues reported by Robert

marionrvrn commented

2026-05-21 10:22:59 +00:00

Member

Robert generated an 8-slide deck from a Dutch PDF business plan. Generation worked well, but he hit several blockers:

Slides stuck "in progress" even though the Jobs panel shows all jobs as Done (it works only when refreshing the page)
Create PDF fails with errors, no working export.
No PPTX or ODP download option, deck can't be used offline.
Buttons in the lower sections point to non-existing destinations.

see doc attached

Robert generated an 8-slide deck from a Dutch PDF business plan. Generation worked well, but he hit several blockers: - Slides stuck "in progress" even though the Jobs panel shows all jobs as Done (it works only when refreshing the page) - Create PDF fails with errors, no working export. - No PPTX or ODP download option, deck can't be used offline. - Buttons in the lower sections point to non-existing destinations. see doc attached

hero slides comments.odt

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casper-stevens commented

2026-05-21 10:54:21 +00:00

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Investigation findings (on current `development` branch)

Bug 1 — Slides stuck "Generating" after jobs complete ✅ Fixed

Root cause: _generatingSlides is a client-side optimistic-tracking Set that is populated when generation is submitted. It was only cleared when has_png became true in the auto-refresh timer. Two failure modes:

If a slide job fails (job state = done, but PNG was not written), has_png stays false forever → badge stuck in "Generating" indefinitely
If SSE fires onSlideJobChanged before the timer clears the set, the badge stays "Generating" until the 2s timer fires

Fix applied in two places:

onSlideJobChanged: now calls _generatingSlides.delete(slug) immediately when a job transitions to a terminal state (done/failed/cancelled/timed_out), before refreshing the deck view
Auto-refresh timer: now also clears slides from _generatingSlides when !slideJobActive(s.name) (job is no longer active in the panel), not only when has_png is true
Timer completion toast now distinguishes between full success and partial failure

Bug 2 — Create PDF fails with errors

No code bug found. The PDF creation is pure Rust (printpdf 0.7) and reads PNGs from output/. Possible causes on the deployed instance:

Corrupted or incomplete PNG files in output/ (partial write during generation)
Insufficient disk space
Bug 1 above: if slides appeared "Done" in the jobs panel but the PNG was never written, PDF would have 0 slides and silently return Ok(())

The fix for Bug 1 might indirectly help here — if slides that "failed" are now correctly shown as Pending instead of Done, the user will know to regenerate before creating a PDF.

Needs error log from the deployed instance to diagnose further.

Bug 3 — No PPTX or ODP download option

Confirmed missing feature. Only PDF export is implemented. PPTX/ODP would require a new export pipeline. Tracking as a separate feature request.

Bug 4 — Buttons in lower sections point to non-existing destinations

Unable to reproduce without the attached document. Investigation found:

The inline slide editor overlay in index.html references 6 functions (fixSlideContent, rewriteSlideContent, toggleInstructPanel, startInstructRecording, stopInstructRecording, executeInstruct) that are not defined in dashboard.js — but this overlay is dead code (never activated in current code flow, openEditor() navigates to the full-page editor instead)
All navigateTo() routes in the template are handled by the router
No other obviously broken navigation buttons found

Please share the attached document or screenshot so we can identify the specific buttons.

## Investigation findings (on current `development` branch) ### Bug 1 — Slides stuck "Generating" after jobs complete ✅ Fixed Root cause: `_generatingSlides` is a client-side optimistic-tracking Set that is populated when generation is submitted. It was only cleared when `has_png` became `true` in the auto-refresh timer. Two failure modes: 1. If a slide job **fails** (job state = done, but PNG was not written), `has_png` stays `false` forever → badge stuck in "Generating" indefinitely 2. If SSE fires `onSlideJobChanged` before the timer clears the set, the badge stays "Generating" until the 2s timer fires Fix applied in two places: - `onSlideJobChanged`: now calls `_generatingSlides.delete(slug)` immediately when a job transitions to a terminal state (done/failed/cancelled/timed_out), before refreshing the deck view - Auto-refresh timer: now also clears slides from `_generatingSlides` when `!slideJobActive(s.name)` (job is no longer active in the panel), not only when `has_png` is true - Timer completion toast now distinguishes between full success and partial failure ### Bug 2 — Create PDF fails with errors No code bug found. The PDF creation is pure Rust (`printpdf` 0.7) and reads PNGs from `output/`. Possible causes on the deployed instance: - Corrupted or incomplete PNG files in `output/` (partial write during generation) - Insufficient disk space - Bug 1 above: if slides appeared "Done" in the jobs panel but the PNG was never written, PDF would have 0 slides and silently return `Ok(())` The fix for Bug 1 might indirectly help here — if slides that "failed" are now correctly shown as Pending instead of Done, the user will know to regenerate before creating a PDF. Needs error log from the deployed instance to diagnose further. ### Bug 3 — No PPTX or ODP download option Confirmed missing feature. Only PDF export is implemented. PPTX/ODP would require a new export pipeline. Tracking as a separate feature request. ### Bug 4 — Buttons in lower sections point to non-existing destinations Unable to reproduce without the attached document. Investigation found: - The inline slide editor overlay in `index.html` references 6 functions (`fixSlideContent`, `rewriteSlideContent`, `toggleInstructPanel`, `startInstructRecording`, `stopInstructRecording`, `executeInstruct`) that are not defined in `dashboard.js` — but this overlay is dead code (never activated in current code flow, `openEditor()` navigates to the full-page editor instead) - All `navigateTo()` routes in the template are handled by the router - No other obviously broken navigation buttons found Please share the attached document or screenshot so we can identify the specific buttons.

casper-stevens referenced this issue from a commit

2026-05-21 10:55:23 +00:00

fix(ui): fix slides stuck in Generating state after jobs complete

marionrvrn commented

2026-05-21 13:58:20 +00:00

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@casper-stevens those buttons I assume (document is attached in my issue above)

Capture d’écran 2026-05-21 à 15.57.48.png

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casper-stevens commented

2026-05-21 17:28:53 +00:00

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Follow-up investigation

Bug 1 — Slides stuck "Generating" ✅ Fixed (`d2e9c27`)

Already resolved in the previous comment. 30+ commits ahead of the deployed instance.

Bug 2 — PDF creation fails with `missing field 'src'` ✅ Fixed (`d55b8d4`)

Root cause confirmed: handle_deck_pdf_job_logs used the typed hero_proc SDK job_logs() call, which deserializes log line objects with a required src field. hero_proc occasionally omits src from log entries, causing the entire poll to fail with a deserialization error, which the JS client displayed as the repeating Poll error (retrying): job.logs: Deserialization error: Failed to deserialize result: missing field 'src' loop visible in the screenshot.

Fix: replaced the typed call with a raw tolerant deserialization that uses #[serde(default)] on all fields. Deploying current development to the devslides VM will fix both Bug 1 and Bug 2.

Bug 3 — No PPTX / ODP export

Still a missing feature. Only PDF export is implemented. Would require a new export pipeline. Keeping open as a feature request.

Bug 4 — Job card ⧉ button points to a non-existing destination

The external-link button in each job card links to /hero_proc/ui#jobs/<id>. This path works on a full Hero OS install (routed by hero_router), but is a 404 on the standalone devslides VM where hero_proc admin is not exposed at that path.

The clipboard (□) button is unrelated — it copies the job ID and works fine.

Fix: inject HERO_PROC_UI_BASE from the Rust server instead of hardcoding /hero_proc/ui in JS. It would read from a hero_proc secret (e.g. HERO_PROC_ADMIN_URL), default to empty string on standalone deployments, and suppress the button entirely when empty.

## Follow-up investigation ### Bug 1 — Slides stuck "Generating" ✅ Fixed (`d2e9c27`) Already resolved in the previous comment. 30+ commits ahead of the deployed instance. ### Bug 2 — PDF creation fails with `missing field 'src'` ✅ Fixed (`d55b8d4`) Root cause confirmed: `handle_deck_pdf_job_logs` used the typed hero_proc SDK `job_logs()` call, which deserializes log line objects with a required `src` field. hero_proc occasionally omits `src` from log entries, causing the entire poll to fail with a deserialization error, which the JS client displayed as the repeating `Poll error (retrying): job.logs: Deserialization error: Failed to deserialize result: missing field 'src'` loop visible in the screenshot. Fix: replaced the typed call with a raw tolerant deserialization that uses `#[serde(default)]` on all fields. **Deploying current `development` to the devslides VM will fix both Bug 1 and Bug 2.** ### Bug 3 — No PPTX / ODP export Still a missing feature. Only PDF export is implemented. Would require a new export pipeline. Keeping open as a feature request. ### Bug 4 — Job card ⧉ button points to a non-existing destination The external-link button in each job card links to `/hero_proc/ui#jobs/<id>`. This path works on a full Hero OS install (routed by `hero_router`), but is a 404 on the standalone devslides VM where hero_proc admin is not exposed at that path. The clipboard (□) button is unrelated — it copies the job ID and works fine. Fix: inject `HERO_PROC_UI_BASE` from the Rust server instead of hardcoding `/hero_proc/ui` in JS. It would read from a hero_proc secret (e.g. `HERO_PROC_ADMIN_URL`), default to empty string on standalone deployments, and suppress the button entirely when empty.

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slides: Multiple UX issues reported by Robert #87

Investigation findings (on current development branch)

Bug 1 — Slides stuck "Generating" after jobs complete ✅ Fixed

Bug 2 — Create PDF fails with errors

Bug 3 — No PPTX or ODP download option

Bug 4 — Buttons in lower sections point to non-existing destinations

Follow-up investigation

Bug 1 — Slides stuck "Generating" ✅ Fixed (d2e9c27)

Bug 2 — PDF creation fails with missing field 'src' ✅ Fixed (d55b8d4)

Bug 3 — No PPTX / ODP export

Bug 4 — Job card ⧉ button points to a non-existing destination

Investigation findings (on current `development` branch)

Bug 1 — Slides stuck "Generating" ✅ Fixed (`d2e9c27`)

Bug 2 — PDF creation fails with `missing field 'src'` ✅ Fixed (`d55b8d4`)