diff --git a/app/logical/upload_service/preprocessor.rb b/app/logical/upload_service/preprocessor.rb
index ba268ec78..0889f29a5 100644
--- a/app/logical/upload_service/preprocessor.rb
+++ b/app/logical/upload_service/preprocessor.rb
@@ -111,6 +111,7 @@ class UploadService
 
       # we went through a lot of trouble normalizing the source,
       # so don't overwrite it with whatever the user provided
+      pred.source = "" if pred.source.nil?
       pred.attributes = self.params.except(:source)
 
       # if a file was uploaded after the preprocessing occurred,
diff --git a/app/presenters/upload_presenter.rb b/app/presenters/upload_presenter.rb
index 576008529..36f9babd3 100644
--- a/app/presenters/upload_presenter.rb
+++ b/app/presenters/upload_presenter.rb
@@ -9,6 +9,9 @@ class UploadPresenter < Presenter
       dup_post_id = $1
       template.link_to(@upload.status.gsub(/error: RuntimeError - /, ""), template.__send__(:post_path, dup_post_id))
 
+    when /\Aerror: /
+      @upload.status.gsub(/DETAIL:.+/m, "...")
+
     else
       @upload.status
     end