Old Template used during Story Preview

I found an interesting oddity in our 1.10.2 installation. 
From what I can
tell it started happening after a element template was
updated.  When
previewing the story, it would randomly preview using the
old template.  I
had the asset pulled up on firefox 2 on a mac and someone
else was previewing
it with IE6 on a PC.  Periodically when one of us would
preview the asset the
template would revert the previous version.

This would not happen very often and only during preview.  I
checked the logs
and did not see anything strange during the same time
period.  Caches were
cleared, both of us logged out, and still it would occur. 
Preview is setup
to send to the same server via a filesystem transfer.  This
happened once
before while previewing a story, the category template would
revert to an old
version which was several months old.  Anyone have ideas or
places to look? 

Thanks,

Chris

Chris Heiland
Web Developer
425.352.3658
Web Services
Information Systems, Campus Box 358540 
University of Washington Bothell

I've seen a potentially related symptom which is that after
updating an
element type with a change, e.g. a new field, the new field
does not
appear in an existing story of that element type until after
I save the
story once and then return to editing.

Maybe the preview issues will go away if you save the story
again after
making the element type change?
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Heiland [mailto:CHeilanduwb.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 7:13 PM
To: userslists.bricolage.cc
Subject: Old Template used during Story Preview

I found an interesting oddity in our 1.10.2 installation. 
From what I
can
tell it started happening after a element template was
updated.  When
previewing the story, it would randomly preview using the
old template.
I
had the asset pulled up on firefox 2 on a mac and someone
else was
previewing
it with IE6 on a PC.  Periodically when one of us would
preview the
asset the
template would revert the previous version.

This would not happen very often and only during preview.  I
checked the
logs
and did not see anything strange during the same time
period.  Caches
were
cleared, both of us logged out, and still it would occur. 
Preview is
setup
to send to the same server via a filesystem transfer.  This
happened
once
before while previewing a story, the category template would
revert to
an old
version which was several months old.  Anyone have ideas or
places to
look? 

Thanks,

Chris

Chris Heiland
Web Developer
425.352.3658
Web Services
Information Systems, Campus Box 358540 
University of Washington Bothell

"Chris Heiland" <CHeilanduwb.edu> writes:
> I found an interesting oddity in our 1.10.2
installation.  From what
> I can tell it started happening after a element
template was
> updated.  When previewing the story, it would randomly
preview using
> the old template.  I had the asset pulled up on firefox
2 on a mac
> and someone else was previewing it with IE6 on a PC. 
Periodically
> when one of us would preview the asset the template
would revert the
> previous version.
>
> This would not happen very often and only during
preview.  I checked
> the logs and did not see anything strange during the
same time
> period.  Caches were cleared, both of us logged out,
and still it
> would occur.

Which caches? The browser caches? Or the Mason caches?


> Preview is setup to send to the same server via a
filesystem
> transfer.  This happened once before while previewing a
story, the
> category template would revert to an old version which
was several
> months old.  Anyone have ideas or places to look?

Do you really get an old version of the template in
Bricolage, or do
you get stories rendered as like an old template was used?

The first one would be a real bug, but it's so strange that
it should
have been seen by someone before. What does the
"Diff" say? Is the new
version lost? Then maybe a database issue with missing
commits or the
like?

If it's the last one, then it looks like a typical Mason
cache
problem.

Mason cache problems happen, for instance, when you transfer
the files
to another filesystem (or Bricolage instance) and the
timestamps
change during an rsync or due to different times of the
machines. I
had such a problem just a few days before.

Start debugging by looking into the Mason cache
bricolage/data/burn/data/obj, see what you foobar.mc.obj
contains.

Reading http://www.masonh
q.com/?FAQ:Caching helped me getting ideas
when I debugged my issue.

It's just an idea though ...

GreetinX
Steffen 
-- 
Steffen Schwigon <schwigonwebit.de>
Dresden Perl Mongers <http://dresden-pm.org/>

Deutscher Perl-Workshop <http://www.perl-work
shop.de/>

> Which caches? The browser caches? Or the Mason caches?

Browser caches.

> Do you really get an old version of the template in
Bricolage, or do
> you get stories rendered as like an old template was
used?

Stories rendered as like an old template was used.


> If it's the last one, then it looks like a typical
Mason cache
> problem.
> 
> 
> Start debugging by looking into the Mason cache
> bricolage/data/burn/data/obj, see what you
foobar.mc.obj contains.
> 

This was where I found the interesting pieces to the puzzle
of the problem.
I looked in the cache for the story template and found there
were two getting
created on preview.  The first was in the output channel
where I would expect
it to be.  The second was in a user's sandbox where it
should not have been
created, as that user did not touch the latest template.

In the most likely situation, the user id associated with
the older template
did to the latest update to that version of the template. 
The system then
held on to that information and when it previewed the latest
version it used
the older sandbox version randomly.

I am including the file list below:

./sandboxoc_1040/style.mc.obj
./oc_1029/style.mc.obj

The style.mc.obj in the sandbox cache was the older version
and the oc had
the latest version.  Although it was a Mason cache issue, it
is a strange
one.  I cleared out all those files in the cache and had the
user checkout
and checkin the template to see if that made the difference.
 So far so good,
but I'll let you know if anything changes.

Chris

On Jul 13, 2007, at 11:08, Chris Heiland wrote:

> I am including the file list below:
>
> ./sandboxoc_1040/style.mc.obj
> ./oc_1029/style.mc.obj
>
> The style.mc.obj in the sandbox cache was the older
version and the  
> oc had
> the latest version.  Although it was a Mason cache
issue, it is a  
> strange
> one.  I cleared out all those files in the cache and
had the user  
> checkout
> and checkin the template to see if that made the
difference.  So  
> far so good,
> but I'll let you know if anything changes.

In older versions of Bricolage, a user's sandbox often was
not  
properly cleared when a new version of a template was
checked-in, or  
the checkout was cancelled. Might that old sandbox version
date back  
to 1.10.1 or so?

This is not a Mason caching issue, though, really. It's
Bricolage  
that prepends a user's sandbox directory to the component
directories  
list that Mason searches in order to push the templates
you're  
editing up front so that you can preview your changes
without  
interfering with anyone else doing previews or publishes.

Best,

David

> 
> In older versions of Bricolage, a user's sandbox often
was not
> properly cleared when a new version of a template was
checked-in, or
> the checkout was cancelled. Might that old sandbox
version date back
> to 1.10.1 or so?

It's been over a year since we have run 1.10.1 and less than
a month since
the template was updated last.  Interesting though.

Chris