rust-lang / rust-lang/rustup

"error: toolchain 'nightly-foo' is not installed" is confusing

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#301 9 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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bug help wanted
Dominant language
Rust
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

This "not installed" message happens when the toolchain parser fails to parse the name and then considers it a "custom" toolchain. After that, the operation fails, and the reason is because there is no custom toolchain with that name.

It's confusing though because the user may have typo'd a channel name, not expecting it to be installed.

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

Start by tracing the toolchain parser and the code that produces the “not installed” message. Reproduce the behavior with the nightly-foo name and determine how parser failure is distinguished from a missing custom toolchain. Done means the error explains the invalid or unrecognized channel without misleading users about installation.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
cli
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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