Major New Bug in Custom Properties

[Tim Weaver]

Just found a serious problem with our site following the 7.0.2 upgrade. We are getting random contents displayed instead of default values for Custom Properties.

We set the defaults under Site Defaults. We only set a Custom Property under a product if it needs to be different from the default.

This used to work fine, but now we find that when not specified for a product, instead of the default value, we are frequently getting a value from another product appearing in its place.

This is so bad, that we are now seriously misinforming our customers and we may be forced to take the shop off the air if we cannot get a fix ASAP.

Please could someone at Actinic investigate as a matter of urgency?

[Tim Weaver]

More information...

If you preview a product using Preview Page then the properties are displayed correctly - the default values are being taken from where they are set in Site Defaults.

If you Preview Catalog, thenthe same properties are not being displayed correctly!

[garyhay]

Hmm I have a support ticket opened that although about something different is also related to the Site Preview.

[Tim Weaver]

Problem is that this is affecting the live site too!

[cdicken]

Tim

I have been able to reproduce this on a default store, and I have got the development team going on coming up with a fix for it.

In the meantime, all I can suggest is de-selecting 'Use as CUSTOMVAR' for your custom properties in 'Design | Options | Site Defaults' as at least showing no information is better than showing wrong information - at least until a fix is found.

[Tim Weaver]

Thanks Chris. It's good to know I'm not going mad!

[cdicken]

You are not going mad

Unfortunately, as this problem only affects a relatively small amount of users, the management team have decided not to put out an emergency interim release to fix this.

The next maintenance is scheduled for the new year so all I can suggest doing is manually entering a default custom property value for each product. However, there is a way to speed this up and save clicking...

If you export your store as a hierarchical file you can copy and paste 'CustomProperty' rows with default values underneath each 'Product' row. Then re-import the data. It will still take time, and is a pain and I apologise for that, but it will mean that correct data is showing for your customers.

[Tim Weaver]

OK, Chris. I guess I'll have to have a go at that then...

[Tim Weaver]

Except that it doesn't work!

For whatever reason, disabling the defaults causes some of the the instances of the product specific ones to display as blank.

As also discussed in the new thread http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=10603 in more detail.

I would add that product duplicates seem less susceptable to having their properties overwritten, and I have cured some instances simply by duplicating a product in situ and hiding the original.

[cdicken]

Tim - I cannot reproduce these errors. Can I ask you, if you have not already done, to register an email support query and ask them to look at your snapshot. It could well be there is something we can do to fix it.

[NormanRouxel]

Chris,

Could you tell us what the problem actually is?

There could be many people who've not upgraded to 7.0.2 and might be affected if they have similar requirements to Tim's.

Norman

[cdicken]

The bug that I have been able to reproduce is described below... (P1, P2, P3 etc are products in a section and 'default' is the default custom property value set in 'Design Options'.).

Required structure...
P1 no CUSTOMVAR, uses default
P2 CUSTOMVAR=non-default
P3 no CUSTOMVAR, uses default
P4 no CUSTOMVAR, uses default

Because of bug...
P1 no CUSTOMVAR, uses default
P2 CUSTOMVAR=non-default
P3 no CUSTOMVAR using non-default from P2, error
P4 no CUSTOMVAR using non-default from P2, error

One possible workaround is to set the default value on P3...
P1 no CUSTOMVAR, uses default
P2 CUSTOMVAR=non-default
P3 CUSTOMVAR=default
P4 no CUSTOMVAR using default from P3, correct

The amount of work depends on how many products and how often the
CUSTOMVAR is used. The alternative would be to set the CUSTOMVAR for all products.

Tim's other problem is more complex, and I have asked him to register a support problem because it will take more investigation to figure out whether the problem is related or different. It looks like it is related but you can read about it in the link given by Tim above.

[NormanRouxel]

Chris,

Many thanks for defining the problem so well.

Unfortunately, as this problem only affects a relatively small amount of users, the management team have decided not to put out an emergency interim release to fix this.

IMHO - a bad call. I can think of numerous real world scenarios that can't trust 7.0.2 because of this.

Norman

[Tim Weaver]

I have now registered an email support query.

My belief is that both my problems are related and that the problem described by Chris above is a little more complex than at first thought.

The extra twist arises when one has multiple levels of sections within the content tree. In this case, even without defaults set, a CustomVar set on a product at a higher level in the tree appears to overwrite the "default" slot at that level (much as the default is overwritten in Chris' example). Then at a lower level in the heirarchy this "pseudo default" appears to cause some specific product settings to be overwriten.

Imagine Chris' example with a subsection and without a default being set. P2 becomes the "pseudo default" and then acts as the default for the subsection, so triggering the problem again at the sub-section level.

I have been able to reproduce this "pseudo default" behaviour in simple test site, but I suspect that in a more complex structure with many sections, multiple tiers of subsections and products, the fault behaves less predictably.

[Tim Weaver]

I registered support call no. 39748 and provided a snapshot and full description of the problem on 16 November but I have not received any further response since then. We still have the problem and it is still impacting our online store.

Any chance someone at Actinic could chase this up please?