We are seeing a lot of record save errors in Cataloging recently and I'd like to suggest a couple of improvements to the error messages themselves. 1. When a record can't save, a large black bar of an pop-up error message comes onscreen in the Advanced Editor (Something went wrong, cannot save). This large black bar sits right across the Save to Catalog button, which it seems to me is the natural next step for the user (i.e., try to save it again). It would be better if this message sat higher and didn't obscure the save button. 2. When a record can't save, a small yellow bar of an error message appears integrated into the grey frame above the record (Error: Internal server error). This error message is persistent, and if there are multiple save failures, more and more yellow bars accumulate, pushing the record text lower and lower on the screen. These messages also persist after a successful save. The green successful save alert is fleeting, but these yellow bars remain on the screen, making it difficult to notice that the record has finally saved, and also difficult to work further with the MARC since it is low on the screen. It would be best if these yellow bar messages would clear out after a successful save.
Not to excuse any part of the messaging (which is quite awful), but: That big "Something went wrong" message will go away if you click on it, and you really do want to click on it to get rid of it, since in some circumstances if you avoid it, save again and succeed, the attempt to put up the green "Record saved" message will instead just remove the "Something went wrong" message leaving you with no idea whether it saved or failed again.
Good to know! And that explains why sometimes we don't see the green successful save alert or why it only comes on the screen for a split second sometimes and we aren't too confident without checking other clues in the record that save happened. On the subject of improving the error messages then, I would also suggest this message text indicate that one should click it to move on. That definitely wasn't intuitive to me.