RocketChat / RocketChat/Rocket.Chat

Reminder with reminderMinutesBeforeStart = 0 is ignored due to falsy check

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type: bug
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Description

When creating a calendar event with reminderMinutesBeforeStart explicitly set to 0, the reminder is silently ignored. This happens because the reminderTime calculation relies on a truthy check, causing valid numeric values like 0 to be treated as if no reminder was configured.

Current Behavior

If an event is created with:

reminderMinutesBeforeStart: 0

The following logic is executed:

const reminderTime = minutes ? getShiftedTime(startTime, -minutes) : undefined;

Since 0 is a falsy value in JavaScript/TypeScript, reminderTime becomes undefined.

As a result:

  • reminderMinutesBeforeStart is stored as 0
  • reminderTime is not generated
  • No notification is scheduled
Expected Behavior

A value of 0 should be treated as a valid input, representing an immediate reminder at the event start time.

For example:

startTime = 10:00
reminderMinutesBeforeStart = 0

Expected:

reminderTime = 10:00

Root Cause

The condition:

minutes ? getShiftedTime(...) : undefined

incorrectly filters out valid values like 0. The logic checks for truthiness instead of checking whether a numeric value was provided.

Proposed Fix

Replace the falsy check with an explicit undefined/type check:

const reminderTime =
minutes !== undefined ? getShiftedTime(startTime, -minutes) : undefined;

This ensures that 0 is handled correctly while preserving existing behavior.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Locate the reminderTime calculation that uses minutes in the calendar event creation flow and trace how its result reaches notification scheduling. Verify that an explicit value of 0 produces a reminderTime equal to startTime, while an omitted value still produces no reminder; add or run the relevant reminder tests if available.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
backend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
62/100

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