Org events page shows an error for empty organizations due to inconsistent API response format

[Ayananth]

Terms

• I have searched all open bug reports
• I agree to follow activist's Code of Conduct

Behavior

Summary

The bug is caused by an inconsistent response format from the organization events API.

When an organization has no events, the API returns a paginated object containing { results: [ ] }, while an organization with events returns a plain array. The frontend always calls .map() directly on the response, causing the events page to crash for organizations with no events.

Error

res.map is not a function

Screenshot

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a new organization with no events.
2. Visit /organizations/<orgId>/events.
3. The page shows error.

Root cause

Backend

OrganizationEventViewSet.list() in backend/communities/organizations/views.py returns different response shapes depending on whether events exist:

• No events:

  {
    "count": 0,
    "next": null,
    "previous": null,
    "results": []
  }

• Has events:

  [...]

Frontend

fetchOrganizationEvents() in frontend/app/services/communities/organization/event.ts always expects a plain array:

return res.map(mapEvent);

When the organization has no events, res is an object rather than an array, causing:

res.map is not a function

Contribution

What would you prefer as the fix here: handling the response shape in the frontend, or making the backend return a consistent response format? I'm happy to work on either approach.

I'm happy to open a PR for the fix once this issue is confirmed.

[andrewtavis]

Thanks for the issue, @Ayananth! Feel free to pick this one up :)

[nicki182]

@Ayananth I prefer that the backend always return an array even if it's an empty one. I would like after this to do a check to all list types services to do the same but I would like the input of @to-sta or @sh-ran since they are the main maintainers of the backend regarding this.

[Ayananth]

@nicki182
I’ve made the changes to have the backend return an array, when there are no results ( only for events endpoint) .
I’ll create the PR once the approach is confirmed.
If this approach is confirmed, I’d be happy to audit the other list-type services as well to ensure consistent responses.
@to-sta @sh-ran @andrewtavis

[andrewtavis]

I agree that list endpoints should always return an array. Thanks for the conversation here!

[Ayananth]

@andrewtavis @nicki182 @sh-ran @to-sta

I’ve created the PR for the events list endpoint to return a consistent response format.

I’d like to also audit the other list endpoints and make sure their response formats are consistent. Would it be okay if I proceed with that?