Z

Zap

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 16:57:45 -0700

Papa Dragon wrote the following post Mon, 26 Apr 2021 16:57:45 -0700

Hi, Zot people,

I'm having an issue, first not with Zap but with its sibling project, Roadhouse. After checking, it appears that I get the exact same issue with Zap. Again I'll be asking Alice & Bob to help me describe the issue.

Alice has a channel with permissions set to private by default. For the comments, she decided to allow anyone on the internet to comment by default, as she plans to make some public posts from time to time. Her channel is connected to Bob's channel but not to Carol's channel. The three channels are hosted on the same server.

So here's what happens:

If Alice makes a public post, it will appear on both Bob and Carol's public stream page. If Bob writes a comment from there everything is OK. But if Carol tries to comment it won't work (she can try, because the comment text area is present). After a few seconds, an error message appears. I get it in French, in English it must be something like "System error. Post not saved.".

Here are the log entries I could find when Carol tries to comment :

2021-04-26T22:47:58Z:LOG_INFO:514299aa7f:Item.php:566:post: mod_item: item_post parent=950
2021-04-26T22:47:58Z:LOG_INFO:514299aa7f:Item.php:687:post: mod_item: post accepted from Carol for Carol
2021-04-26T22:47:58Z:LOG_INFO:514299aa7f:language.php:295:detect_language: string length less than 128
2021-04-26T22:47:58Z:LOG_INFO:514299aa7f:items.php:1829:item_store: item_store: item parent was not found - ignoring item
2021-04-26T22:47:58Z:LOG_INFO:514299aa7f:Item.php:1550:post: mod_item: unable to retrieve post that was just stored.
2021-04-26T22:48:08Z:LOG_INFO:e9cea2c6fb:Admin.php:32:init: admin_init
2021-04-26T22:48:08Z:LOG_INFO:e9cea2c6fb:Admin.php:67:get: admin_content

If Carol really wants to comment Alice's public post, she'll need to visit Alice's homepage (while being logged in, as the server is set to hide any content from non authenticated visitors), and there she'll be able to post her comment. I guess that this is not the expected behaviour.

Zap

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 17:52:42 -0700

I see the problem. It will probably take about a half hour to fix.

Zap

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 18:13:18 -0700

Fix has been pushed to the dev branch on Zap and Roadhouse.

Papa Dragon

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 05:09:26 -0700

I did some testing with Zap et Roadhouse (using dev branches on both).

On Zap - It now works flawlessly. Carol can comment Alice's public posts from the public stream even if their channels are not connected at all.

On Roadhouse - I get the very same error message and I still get the following lines in the log file :

2021-04-27T11:37:25Z:LOG_INFO:e9cea2c6fb:Item.php:566:post: mod_item: item_post parent=1008
2021-04-27T11:37:25Z:LOG_INFO:e9cea2c6fb:Item.php:687:post: mod_item: post accepted from Carol for Carol
2021-04-27T11:37:25Z:LOG_INFO:e9cea2c6fb:language.php:295:detect_language: string length less than 128
2021-04-27T11:37:25Z:LOG_INFO:e9cea2c6fb:items.php:1829:item_store: item_store: item parent was not found - ignoring item
2021-04-27T11:37:25Z:LOG_INFO:e9cea2c6fb:Item.php:1550:post: mod_item: unable to retrieve post that was just stored.

The only difference between the sites, is that Zap is used without communications restrictions, while on Roadhouse all communications are blocked except for three sites (including itself). That really is the only configuration difference I can think of.

Extra information, just in case :

If Bob, whose channel is connected with Alice's channel (and validated) tries to comment from the public stream, it works (already did before the fix).

Dave, who sent a connection request to Alice's channel but has not been approved yet, can also comment without a problem. There is a little glitch though, as his comment will appear twice right after being posted (after refershing the page, the same comment will only appear once as expected).

mike

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 13:57:17 -0700

Afraid I can't find this one. I've pushed a minor update to provide a bit more logging around the trouble area. Would appreciate if you could repeat on Roadhouse with Carol and see if the logs offer any further insight. I'm still looking into the display glitch with Dave but at a lower priority since that eventually does the right thing.

Papa Dragon

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 14:42:52 -0700

Log looks similar after the update.

2021-04-27T21:22:52Z:LOG_INFO:982ca0400a:Item.php:566:post: mod_item: item_post parent=1011
2021-04-27T21:22:52Z:LOG_INFO:982ca0400a:Item.php:687:post: mod_item: post accepted from Carol for Carol
2021-04-27T21:22:52Z:LOG_INFO:982ca0400a:language.php:295:detect_language: string length less than 128
2021-04-27T21:22:52Z:LOG_INFO:982ca0400a:items.php:1829:item_store: item_store: item parent was not found - ignoring item
2021-04-27T21:22:52Z:LOG_INFO:982ca0400a:Item.php:1550:post: mod_item: unable to retrieve post that was just stored.

I'll try to remove all communications restrictions, to see if it makes any difference. Just need a few minutes.

Papa Dragon

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 16:34:34 -0700

Sorry, I'm at work, took a little longer than expected.

So, removing all communications restrictions on the Roadhouse site did not change anything.

I also tried to change some public stream settings see if it would change anything, and then something unexpexcted happen. The site was configured to show only the server's public stream. I tried to enable the global public stream, but then all I got was an empty public stream (while it was populated before), and that for all the site's channels.

The only way to recover the public stream, is to switch back to the local public stream only setting.

Unfortunately, the logs don't show anything special or different when I have the empty public stream.

I'm considering trying to install a new testing Roadhouse site, configured the usual way (with no communications restrictions and access to the global public stream), just to check that it works just as fine as my Zap site.

Also, I'm available during the next hour, before I go back to work, so I can try to look for a little extra information if needed.

mike

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 16:50:14 -0700

OK, that makes sense. I've been working under the assumption that it was an issue commenting from the global public stream. If it is the local public stream, that changes everything and I believe I know exactly what is going on now but I'll have to start over with the patch. Please don't reconfigure any further because historically when this happens many people end up "flailing" with so many changes that they can't find their way back to the original configuration. So first just try and get back to "normal" or your original desired configuration. I'll work on the patch and get back to you once I get that sorted.

Papa Dragon

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 17:16:29 -0700

Configuration now back to what I iniitially wanted. I'll wait for your green light.

mike

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 17:20:57 -0700

I believe we're good to go.

Papa Dragon

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 17:28:16 -0700

Well, that was fast :)

I'm pleased to confirm that Carol can now comment Alice's public posts from the public stream page, when only the local public stream is enabled.

Although, I did try to enable the global public stream, just to check, and it still is empty.

Zap

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 18:04:47 -0700

We only put incoming public content into the global public stream if the global stream is active at the precise time a post arrives. The site stream behaves somewhat differently and abides by a completely different set of rules. I see very little that would be gained by making them consistent and the effort involved would be huge so I'm just going to leave that one alone unless somebody wants to sponsor the effort.

Papa Dragon

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 05:40:47 -0700

I didn't know that local and global weren't handled the same way (which actually sounds logical). Switching the public stream from global to local only and the other way is probably not something an administrator would frequently do, I'd say leaving things the way they are is perfectly fine.

Thanks a lot for the time spent on making the local stream functional. We have not decided if we will use it for our small community site: some say the elder ones do not need to fear this huge internet thing, while others think it's better not to allow them to access potential unsafe content as it could convince them that Internet is definitely too scary for them...