Name True, iCloud access false: Exceptional problem locks online storage account, stumps Apple customer service
- Reference: 1615209311
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/03/08/name_true_apple_icloud_access/
- Source link:
"Actor, author, artist" Rachel True [1]posted on Twitter about an error with the iCloud application, an unhandled exception with "Type error: cannot set value `true` to property `lastName`."
[2]
It seems that her name was interpreted as a Boolean value instead of a string, a common programming problem especially in dynamic languages which are more flexible about variable types.
Anyone else getting this error from Apple iCloud ? In past or now?
I’m 6 months deep freeze & looking for any help.
I rem dead coding languages like kobalt.. & this seems like an Apple coding issue — not hardware [3]pic.twitter.com/05EJmG3d6Y — Rachel True (@RachelTrue) [4]February 27, 2021
[5]
True recognised it as a programming problem, saying: "This seems like an Apple coding issue – not hardware." She implied that she has been locked out of iCloud storage for six months and said that interactions with customer service were not going well.
"3+ hours on phone today w/ customer service + the 2+ hours yesterday + the countless other times I spent 2+ hours on phone... make this my new part time unpaid job @AppleSupport … Make that 4+ hours on phone today & the fun part is they won’t stop charging me for the icloud storage I can't access...." She added later that she has "tier 2 support and an executive liaison person."
As so often, social media proved more effective than other channels and her complaint drew a swift response, [6]saying : "Rachel, I work in the iCloud team and help you to get a resolution. Please send me a DM."
Another user posted the JavaScript code he said caused the [7]issue – though note that this looks for lower case "true". They may be onto something: it seems that True entered her name in lower case, and a suggestion to fix this by changing true to True seems partially effective.
"Didn't fix on phone, did on laptop," she said, admitting today of the problem when you "accidentally input small t for True surname when you update Apple ID form." Another programmer [8]said : "I actually recently encountered the same thing. API response with 'true' and 'false'. You can't easily convert it to boolean, since Boolean("false") === true, so I ended up checking for the explicit string value."
Some comments showed related issues faced by others. "One of my former bosses used to automatically filter my email," [9]said Darrell Root. "My friend did research on using the name Null and found all sorts of problems," [10]said another .
[11]
It seems True has taken it in good spirits, [12]saying : "Today I've discerned I am a powerful uncapitalized true boolean code breaker drop table witch of the highest order." ®
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[1] https://twitter.com/RachelTrue/status/1365461618977476610
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YEZYLoiEPCBNwZkgrBjYlQAAAII&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://t.co/05EJmG3d6Y
[4] https://twitter.com/RachelTrue/status/1365461618977476610?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YEZYLoiEPCBNwZkgrBjYlQAAAII&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://twitter.com/arungupta/status/1368226513334587394
[7] https://twitter.com/thexpaw/status/1368181835264630784/photo/1
[8] https://twitter.com/revadike/status/1368242639758389251
[9] https://twitter.com/DarrellRoot/status/1368301732686524417
[10] https://twitter.com/richinseattle/status/1368322736854986752
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YEZYLoiEPCBNwZkgrBjYlQAAAII&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://twitter.com/RachelTrue/status/1368383846262005761
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Could have been worse
That was my first thought - little_bobby_tables@icloud.com...
"Type error: cannot set value `true` to property `lastName`."
At first sight, maybe they're passing user input directly into SQL queries - a very common practice despite being idiotically hazardous. Nobody seems to learn.
Re: "Type error: cannot set value `true` to property `lastName`."
From the look of things they're using poorly formatted JSON in their API requests, setting "true" or "false" as a string values instead of a boolean, then "fixing" that by explicitly re-casting any string with the value of "true" or "false" as a boolean value. This is bad for a lot of reasons.
Importance of capital letters
Can't help but think that my old primary school teacher (who hated both children and spelling mistakes, but children more) may have had a point when she said that the laziness of phone and web text communication would come back to bite us one day.
c ya l8tr dudes
My name is
'; DROP TABLE Users;
Re: My name is
'; DROP TABLE Users;--
FTFY
If Ms True has a problem...
... I feel sorry for her NaN.
Speaking of javascript idiocy. Tescos have some new software on their self service tills. Opt to weigh something and the unladen scales display a weight of "undefined kg "
> weight of "undefinedkg"
That's dumb, it should be a weight of undefined N , which is at least better then undefined ftlb
Similar problem
I once had a client with an internal application where a user told me that the reason they didn't trust the developers is that they just blindly implemented what they were asked for. He illustrated it with a story. His surname was Li, and in common with many organizations, the system used a username scheme of first initial followed by surname. When the application was rolled out he was unable to log in and would be faced with an ugly NullPointerException stack trace in his browser. He raised it with the developers, and 6 months later was told it would be fixed in the next release. After the release, he eagerly entered his username and password, and was presented with a login error page with the error "Username must be at least 4 characters long". The developers had fixed the ugly stack trace, but not the underlying problem that users with three character usernames could not log in.
Re: Similar problem
Went to college with an Indonesian girl that only had one name - you don't get a surname until you're married, the offspring of a Sri-Lankan and an Italian who had a double barralled surname that broke both the length limits of any name field and the tongue of anyone attempting to pronounce it and a Korean guy with a 3 x 2 letter names who seemed to treat their ordering totally randomly on different systems.
Would only have needed Prince in his Artist-Formerly-Known-As days to reduce the college admin to gibbering wrecks
Re: Similar problem
I thoroughly recommend that any programmer who has to deal with names should read this article on [1]Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names .
[1] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/
Re: Similar problem
Even today, developers fall foul of name/password length limits.
I've just encountered this with an EV charger. The WiFi SSID password field that you need to use to setup the device is hardcoded to have a max length of 16 characters. My home network has a password that in 32 Hex characters. The WiFi standard allows up to 64 characters.
Impasse. Luckily I had an old Access Point that I reconfigured to connect the charger.
Doh!
Could have been worse
https://xkcd.com/327/