Server issue Merge Posts Option Missing

PASS

Well-known member
Affected version
2.1 RC 1
I was merging some posts. The first few times I did it, I had no issues. Then I went to merge two more posts and the Merge option was missing from the menu. I had to deselect the 2 posts, re-select them, and then the Merge option was there.

2.1 RC2, default theme.
 
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to reproduce this. There is a permission check, such that if you can't merge any of the posts selected, that option won't appear. I doubt that would apply if deselect and reselect triggers it.

The only thing I can think of is that the system only thought you had one post selected. That should be confirmable by the counter within the inline mod bar that appears:
193852

So if you manage to reproduce it, check that. Unfortunately though, to debug, we'd need to be able to reproduce it, so ideally we'd need some sort of steps that we could use to trigger it.
 
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to reproduce this. There is a permission check, such that if you can't merge any of the posts selected, that option won't appear. I doubt that would apply if deselect and reselect triggers it.

The only thing I can think of is that the system only thought you had one post selected. That should be confirmable by the counter within the inline mod bar that appears:
View attachment 193852

So if you manage to reproduce it, check that. Unfortunately though, to debug, we'd need to be able to reproduce it, so ideally we'd need some sort of steps that we could use to trigger it.

Hey Mike,

It just happened again. I took a screen shot this time. 2 posts are selected, but only shows 1 post selected. Will open a ticket with more info.
 
Unfortunately, despite trying a number of things, we're still not able to reproduce this. I've done some code analysis and I can't see any obvious cause either.

Note that we're mostly interested in a scenario where reloading the page doesn't appear to resolve the issue. We do have code to try to avoid a race condition with fast selection changes (with a slow network/server), though often that's just minimizing the window as much as possible.

If you do manage to trigger this in such a way that it still happens with a page reload, please disable all add-ons and see if that changes anything. I can't see anything in the core code that might trigger this.
 
FWIW, this appears to be some sort of server caching, where it was returning the same response when 2 requests were made in the same second (which could happen if checking boxes quickly).
 
Looks like this bug is back:


Screenshot 2023-07-19 at 18.37.01.webp
 
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I've merged a couple of hundred posts* over the past couple of days, no issue in doing so. (latest xf, php 8.0.29, nginx)
(*people refusing to using multi-quote)
 
But here you choice only one post.
No I actually had three posts ticked for moderation. You are correct that's what it says, but as you can see at least two were chosen. In the second post the box is also ticked but as you can it is partially hidden by the selection options.

So they are both selected but xenforo only thinks one is. Strange,



2selected.webp
 
No I actually had three posts ticked for moderation. You are correct that's what it says, but as you can see at least two were chosen. In the second post the box is also ticked but as you can it is partially hidden by the selection options.

So they are both selected but xenforo only thinks one is. Strange,



View attachment 288798
Is this the happening in default XenForo theme too?
 
I have seen this for as long as I can remember, and always got around it by unchecking one of the posts and then rechecking it.

The same happens merging multiple threads.
 
Being intermittent does not rule out an add-on.
I agree, but makes it much harder to troubleshoot which addon.
But having disabled all addons and still have the issue (most of the time) I managed to pinpoint what I think is the reason.

It seems to be because of a paypal donate button.

If I remove the button it seems to correctly show more than 1 post selected.

With the button in place then we get the intermittent issue. It is odd because this has only just started happening but maybe a change at Paypal has brought it on.

So what is happening exactly:

  • You can select two or more posts
  • The selected post counter only shows one as selected
  • The merge posts and merge threads options do not appear (as if only one post was selected)
  • Other moderator actions appear, and they take effect e.g. if two posts are selected and you choose DELETE, both posts get deleted although the counter is still only showing one.
 
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Now tested on another forum and yes - it can be reproduced

This may have been the mysterious cause of the original bug report maybe? But to avoid confusion I've made a new bug report with steps to reproduce because it isn't necessarily a merge option per se, but the mod selected counter that causes it.


Although I don't know if this is counted as a xenForo bug or Paypal bug @Mike ? However it is important as many people do rely on those buttons for income.
 
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