Since 1.17 the API output for action=query&prop=imageinfo&iiprop=url returns false in the 'descriptionurl' property of the imageinfo object.
See the following two urls of en.wikipedia (MW 1.17)
- (shared) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=jsonfm&action=query&titles=File:Albert%20Einstei%20Head.jpg&prop=imageinfo&iiprop=url%7Cmime&iiurlwidth=200
- (local) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=jsonfm&action=query&titles=File:BahamasCoin.jpg&prop=imageinfo&iiprop=url%7Cmime&iiurlwidth=200
compared t the following two urls of test2.wikipedia (MW 1.16)
- (shared) http://test2.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=jsonfm&action=query&titles=File:Albert%20Einstein%20Head.jpg&prop=imageinfo&iiprop=url%7Cmime&iiurlwidth=200
- (local) http://test2.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=jsonfm&action=query&titles=File:030a%20Shrady%20portrait.tiff&prop=imageinfo&iiprop=url%7Cmime&iiurlwidth=200
According to Bawollf (via IRC) in the MW PHP source code it says getting descriptionurl may return false if it's not applicable or when it's unavailable.
However the description for the url should be available just fine, just like it was fine in 1.16.
This is currently affecting the highly used gadget 'Navigation popups', which, when hovering a link to an article shows the excerpt of an article and the first image. Whenever that image is a local file the anchor-tag around the image will link to 'false' and when hovering the thumb it'll show the excerpt of [[false]].
It will undoubtly screw up many other uses of the API.
Version: unspecified
Severity: major