NoMethodError crash in GumroadAddress.full when ADDRESS_COUNTRY env var is unrecognized

[meet-01]

Bug: GumroadAddress.full raises NoMethodError and crashes the app on boot when ADDRESS_COUNTRY is misconfigured

What

GumroadAddress.full crashes with NoMethodError: undefined method 'alpha3' for nil when the ADDRESS_COUNTRY environment variable is set to a value that ISO3166::Country[] cannot resolve — for example a 3-letter code ("USA" instead of "US"), a typo, or a blank string.

Because the COUNTRY constant is evaluated inside a Rails initializer at boot time, a bad value prevents the entire app from starting. Every request returns a 500 until the env var is corrected.

Current behavior:

• ISO3166::Country["XX"] returns nil for unrecognized codes
• nil.alpha3 raises NoMethodError
• App fails to boot

Desired behavior:

• GumroadAddress.full degrades gracefully when the country code is unrecognized, falling back to the raw configured string instead of crashing

How I encountered this

I was setting up Gumroad locally for the first time on Windows (WSL + Docker), following the standard setup steps. After seeding the database and logging in as seller@gumroad.com, navigating to /workflows/new immediately crashed with:

NoMethodError: undefined method 'alpha3' for nil
config/initializers/gumroad.rb:41:in 'GumroadAddress.full'

The crash path: WorkflowsController#new → WorkflowPresenter#workflow_form_context_props → GumroadAddress.full → COUNTRY.alpha3, where COUNTRY was nil because ISO3166::Country[] didn't resolve the configured value in my local environment.

Why

The default value "US" protects production, but gives no safety net against misconfiguration. Local development and new environments (staging, preview deploys) are common places where env vars are missing or set to placeholders. A boot-time crash from a single bad config value is a disproportionate failure mode — it takes the whole app down rather than degrading a single feature.

I have a fix ready on my fork: meet-01:fix/gumroad-address-nil-country-crash. It splits the constant into COUNTRY_CODE (raw string) and COUNTRY (ISO lookup result), then uses safe navigation with a fallback in GumroadAddress.full. A spec covering both the happy path and the nil-country fallback is included.

[Flamki]

I prepared a scoped fix for this with tests on branch Flamki:fix/gumroad-address-country-fallback-4320 (commit f438433). It adds a nil-safe fallback in GumroadAddress.full and covers valid + invalid country lookup behavior in specs.

[Flamki]

Maintainer-ready patch is available for this issue.

• Branch: Flamki:fix/gumroad-address-country-fallback-4320
• Commit: f438433d
• Upstream compare: main...Flamki:fix/gumroad-address-country-fallback-4320
• Patch URL: https://github.com/Flamki/gumroad/commit/f438433d.patch

Scope summary:

• split raw country config from ISO lookup in GumroadAddress
• make GumroadAddress.full nil-safe with fallback to configured COUNTRY_CODE
• add initializer spec coverage for valid lookup and fallback behavior

I could not open the upstream PR directly due repository permission restrictions on CreatePullRequest for this account, so this is prepared for maintainers to open/cherry-pick without overlap.

[meet-01]

As noted in the issue, I already have a fix ready. here's my branch. Same approach: split the constant, safe navigation with fallback, plus specs. See the last paragraph in the issue description.