Preserve message content when chat send fails

[jon-bell]

When users try to send a message while disconnected from the chat,
the message was being cleared even though it failed to send. This was
because handleSendMessage returned early without throwing an error,
so the .then() block in MessageInput executed and cleared the input.

Now handleSendMessage throws an error when not connected, which is
caught by MessageInput's error handler, preserving the user's message
in the input box so they don't lose their typed content.

https://claude.ai/code/session_012EqUZa3tCdhg3hHkBQkDdg

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Bug Fixes
  • Improved error handling in real-time chat for disconnected states.

_{✏️ Tip: You can customize this high-level summary in your review settings.}

[coderabbitai]

Walkthrough

The handleSendMessage function in the realtime chat component was modified to throw a standard Error when the connection is unavailable, replacing the previous toaster error notification and early return pattern.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Summary
Error Handling Update components/realtime-chat.tsx	Changed the not-connected error path from displaying a toaster notification with early return to throwing a standard Error exception.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~10 minutes

Poem

A message unent takes a different road,
Where errors now throw what they're owed,
Toast once popped, now silence falls,
The exception answers when the connection stalls. ✨

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 3

✅ Passed checks (3 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title 'Preserve message content when chat send fails' accurately captures the main objective of the PR, which is to prevent users from losing typed messages when the chat send operation fails.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.

_{✏️ Tip: You can configure your own custom pre-merge checks in the settings.}

✨ Finishing touches

• 📝 Generate docstrings

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Post copyable unit tests in a comment
• Commit unit tests in branch claude/preserve-failed-messages-zsw9C

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Build	Status	Details	Updated (UTC)
default (Inspect)	⚠️ Changes detected (Review)	70 changed	Jan 31, 2026, 5:18 PM