Client: handle server disconnections gracefully
If the server becomes unavailable, we should provide a specific error message so the person using it knows not to keep retrying.
To reproduce
- Start the server and client and hit the client in the browser
- Stop the server
- Enter an account code and submit it
What should happen
An error should be displayed informing the person that the service is unavailable and providing a link to the contact support.
Copy: We’re sorry, our service appears to be down. We have been alerted about this and are working on fixing it. Please contact <support number/email> if you continue to experience problems.
What actually happens
Please see a “your request was lost in cyberspace” error and are asked to try again. (We need to remove this error in general and replace it with specific errors, like this one and we must not ask people to retry when we are reasonably certain that the error is on our end and that retrying will not help.)