Some datazilla errors output things like: NOISE: Outputting datazilla results to https://datazilla.mozilla.org/talos NOISE: datazilla: https//datazilla.mozilla.org/talos; oauth=True Error posting to https://datazilla.mozilla.org/talos: 500 INTERNAL SERVER ERROR Error posting to https://datazilla.mozilla.org/talos: 500 INTERNAL SERVER ERROR "ERROR" is a string we look for to indicate problems with the test: https://mxr.mozilla.org/build/source/buildbotcustom/steps/talos.py#108 As I understand it, Datazilla errors should be silent, so it would be great if we could change this error string to be something we don't catch in Buildbot.

So part of the problem is that INTERNAL SERVER ERROR is what HTTP 500 is o_O We could lower-case this for talos (and everything else that uses datazilla) if that helps. That said, it is the hack of all hacks

Can't we just catch the exception and print out something else? That doesn't seem very hacky to me.

so the problem is we don't know the string of the exception. In general, you will want to know why you've failed to post to datazilla: 403 UNAUTHORIZED, 500 SERVER ERROR, etc . The string message is not set in talos or datazilla client: http://hg.mozilla.org/build/talos/file/5f421eb0d1ed/talos/output.py#l472

Confirmed locally that this does print lowercase: NOISE: Outputting talos results => {'datazilla_urls': ['https://datazilla.mozilla.org/talos']} NOISE: Outputting datazilla results to https://datazilla.mozilla.org/talos NOISE: datazilla: https//datazilla.mozilla.org/talos; oauth=False Error posting to https://datazilla.mozilla.org/talos: 500 internal server error Error posting to https://datazilla.mozilla.org/talos: 500 internal server error Obviously I can't test buildbot's response locally. Pushed to try: https://tbpl.mozilla.org/?tree=Try&rev=544e994dc2b7

with jmaher's blessing, going ahead and pushing: http://hg.mozilla.org/build/talos/rev/402d205b6946