Good News variant can trap navigation and prevent switching back to other variants

[Rtrem1121]

Variant

Desktop app (Windows)

Affected area

Other

Bug description

Title: Good News variant can trap navigation and prevent switching back to other variants

Summary

Switching to the Good News variant can leave the app stuck there, with the top-left variant tabs no longer working.

Environment

• OS: Windows
• Run mode: local development server
• Browser: Chromium-based browser
• App context: localhost development session with variant switching from the header

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start the app locally.
2. Open the default variant.
3. Click the Good News tab in the upper-left variant switcher.
4. Try switching back to Finance, Full, or another variant.

Expected Behavior

The app should switch cleanly between variants in both directions.

Actual Behavior

The app can become stuck on Good News, and the other variant tabs stop responding.

Reproduction Notes

Two separate problems appear to contribute to this:

1. A full-screen layer warning overlay can appear during initial map/layer hydration and intercept pointer events, which blocks clicks on the variant switcher.
2. On happy / Good News, startup can throw inside the live news panel path because that variant has no built-in default live channels, but the panel initialization assumes at least one channel exists.

When that second error occurs, app initialization is interrupted and the variant click handlers do not finish wiring up, leaving the header variant links effectively inert.

Impact

• User-facing navigation failure
• Variant switching appears broken
• Easy to hit during normal exploration of the app
• Can make the UI feel frozen even though the app is still loaded

Suggested Fix Direction

• Do not show the layer-limit warning during initial hydration; only show it after the user actually increases the active layer count.
• Make the live news panel resilient when a variant has zero default channels.

Validation

After applying those two fixes locally, variant switching worked correctly:

• full -> happy
• happy -> finance

No click-blocking overlay appeared during variant load, and the stored variant updated correctly after switching back.

Steps to reproduce

1. Start the app locally.
2. Open the default variant.
3. Click the Good News tab in the upper-left variant switcher.
4. Wait for the Good News variant to load.
5. Try clicking Finance, Full, or another variant tab in the upper-left header.
6. Observe that the app can remain stuck on Good News and the other variant tabs stop responding.

Expected behavior

The app should switch cleanly between variants, and selecting Good News should not prevent the user from switching back to Finance, Full, or any other variant.

Screenshots / Console errors

No response

Browser & OS

No response

[koala73]

Should be fixed, @Rtrem1121 pls let me know