updated comments, cleaned up conditionals flow

controller/search_with_appending_results.js

@@ -70,22 +70,17 @@ function setup( apiConfig, esclient, query, should_execute ){
           return;
         }
 
-        // if execution has gotten this far then one of three things happened:
+        // error handler, return immediately
-        // - the request didn't time out
-        // - maxRetries has been hit so we're giving up
-        // - another error occurred
-        // in either case, handle the error or results
-
-        // error handler
         if( err ){
-          if (_.isObject(err) && err.message) {
+          req.errors.push(_.defaultTo(err.message, err));
-            req.errors.push( err.message );
+          return;
-          } else {
-            req.errors.push( err );
-          }
         }
-        // set response data
+
-        else {
+        // if execution has gotten this far then one of three things happened:
+        // - success! (the request didn't time out)
+        // - maxRetries has been hit so we're giving up (too many timeouts), 
+        //   docs will be empty
+
         // log that a retry was successful
         // most requests succeed on first attempt so this declutters log files
         if (currentAttempt > 1) {
@@ -112,9 +107,10 @@ function setup( apiConfig, esclient, query, should_execute ){
             es_result_count: parseInt(messageParts[2].slice(17, -1))
           }
         }});
-        }
+
         logger.debug('[ES response]', docs);
         next();
+
       });
       debugLog.stopTimer(req, initialTime);
     });