Inform users about use of forbidden characters

[gioman]

I have setup a project and i MM properties set up the photo name as

'media/tampa_' || now()

which returns something like

This is ok on the mobile that syncs no problem, but the plugin spits out this python error:

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "C:\Users/giovanni/AppData/Roaming/QGIS/QGIS3\profiles\test/python/plugins\Mergin\sync_dialog.py", line 275, in pull_timer_tick
    is_running = pull_project_is_running(self.job)
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

  File "C:\Users/giovanni/AppData/Roaming/QGIS/QGIS3\profiles\test/python/plugins\Mergin\mergin\client_pull.py", line 527, in pull_project_is_running
    raise future.exception()

  File "C:\OSGeo4W\apps\Python312\Lib\concurrent\futures\thread.py", line 59, in run
    result = self.fn(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

  File "C:\Users/giovanni/AppData/Roaming/QGIS/QGIS3\profiles\test/python/plugins\Mergin\mergin\client_pull.py", line 95, in _do_download
    item.download_blocking(mc, mp, project_path)

  File "C:\Users/giovanni/AppData/Roaming/QGIS/QGIS3\profiles\test/python/plugins\Mergin\mergin\client_pull.py", line 324, in download_blocking
    save_to_file(resp, self.download_file_path)

  File "C:\Users/giovanni/AppData/Roaming/QGIS/QGIS3\profiles\test/python/plugins\Mergin\mergin\utils.py", line 39, in save_to_file
    with open(path, "wb") as output:
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

OSError: [Errno 22] Invalid argument: 'C:\\Users\\giovanni\\Documents\\test\\.mergin\\fetch_v10-v11\\media\\tampa_2025-03-13T20:53:24.694.jpg.0'

Maybe would be better to not allow characters like "-" or "/" in the expression to set the photo path and name.

[ValentinBuira]

Hi @gioman, you should not be able to sync even on mobile

see bottom warning message

I'll check with the team to either sanitize the input path or display a warning in the plugin

What I think you're trying to do is save a photos in the media folder and rename it at the same time. To achieve this you should save the photos to a custom folder [1] (e.g : media) and renaming only the filename with e.g 'tampa_' || now() [2]

[1] https://merginmaps.com/docs/layer/photos/#how-to-set-up-a-custom-folder-for-storing-photos
[2] https://merginmaps.com/docs/gis/photo-names/

[gioman]

What I think your trying to do is save a photos in the media folder and rename it at the same tim

@ValentinBuira no, that isn't the case. I pretty much followed a standard procedure for saving photos in a custom folder with a custom name.

[tomasMizera]

Hi @gioman, can you please try formatting the date in format format_date(now(),'yyMMddhhmmss') (https://merginmaps.com/docs/gis/photo-names/#examples-of-photo-names-expressions)? I suspect the issue is not -, but : and . in datetime.

[gioman]

format_date(now(),'yyMMddhhmmss')

@tomasMizera this certainly works. My point here is that the result of an expression that contains characters (regardless what really are the offending ones) that will lead to issues should be sanitized, or even better, the user should be warned about that.

[tomasMizera]

My point here is that the result of an expression that contains characters (regardless what really are the offending ones) that will lead to issues should be sanitized, or even better, the user should be warned about that.

Agreed! We should inform users about accepted characters + the mobile app should not even create a photo name with invalid characters in name. Let me file a ticket in the mobile app repository.

[MarcelGeo]

Add validation error and warning message by creating it.

[MarcelGeo]

Some regression If I provide just now(), it's failing on regular expression validation. Not sure if it's important to solve it.