V7.0.5 Bug Report - Problem with Duplicates containing Custom Properties

[NormanRouxel]

V7.0.5 Has 3 problems regarding duplicate products that have Custom Properties.

1) In all versions prior to 7.0.5 it was possible to set duplicates custom properties to different values to the original. This behaviour has changed dramatically in 7.0.5 where the duplicates have their custom properties greyed out and uneditable. There's no note of this in the 7.0.5 Change Log.

2) In 7.0.5 even though the duplicate properties are greyed out it is possible to right-click and delete the row. This deletes the original products property as well.

3) If you make a duplicate, then change the originals custom properties, then make another duplicate, the new duplicate contains the up-to-date custom property value but the previously created duplicates now contain obsolete property values, which cannot be amended. This may not be initially apparent as the Product Tree / Product Details / Properties appear to contain the current main product values but the generated page will actually contain the orphaned values.

If you've used the 7.0.4 (and prior) capability of having different custom properties for duplicates then be wary of updating to 7.0.5.

[Bruce]

Norman,

Well spotted. There is a bug that has developed in v7.0.5 on duplicates using custom properties. We however have a patch for it. If any of you are using v7.0.5 with Duplicates and Customvars and are facing the Issues Norman has outlined, then please do get in touch with me as I will be able to send you a patch to fix the issue.

There is a long thread on the same issue here.. http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=16909 it was resloved with the above mentioned patch.

Kind regards,

[NormanRouxel]

Hi, Bruce

How does the patch Fix the issue?

Does it restore the V4 and earlier way that allowed duplicates to inherit the parent custom preperties AND allow the duplicates to have these properties manually changed to be independent of the parent?

This seems, to me, to be the desired way. I can envisage many sites who replicate products into many sections but want to use a custom property so that this duplicate can be searched for.

E.g. you're selling a Widget that suits many manufacturers products - you duplicate it into each manufacturers page - however you change it's Manufacturer CustomVar each time so that you can use Search to identify all products that fit that manufacturer.

[Bruce]

Norman,

The patch will not allow independent editing of the duplicates properties. This is also the case in v7.0.5 before the patch. However it does address all the other issues you mentioned.

Does it restore the V4 and earlier way that allowed duplicates to inherit the parent custom preperties AND allow the duplicates to have these properties manually changed to be independent of the parent?

I'm sure you meant copy here as duplicates were introduced only in v7

Kind regards,

[wesleythorne]

Hi, i have installed that patch which for me did the job of updating custom property from the master. The problem i had was that the duplicate product custom property did not update when i changed the master.
I have noted though that the duplicate custom property box is till greyed out, although you right click and delete the row.
The patch sorted my problem of updating correctly but i was not aware that the custom property box should not be greyed out which it still is.
Wesley

[Bruce]

Let me have a word with Development on this.

[NormanRouxel]

Hi, Bruce

When I said "restore the V4 and earlier way" earlier I meant the "restore the V7.0.4 and earlier way".

I think that the 7.0.4 and below functionality is much better - i.e. Duplicates get a private copy of the Original's CustomVars but they can then be edited in the Duplicate without affecting other dups or the original.

This seems desirable behaviour as it lets these properties be used and searched on much more specifically. This is much more useful and flexible.

[Rich Atkins]

Getting Duplicates to work for you

We're one of the Actinic sites that Norman refers to - we featured in an Actinic press release because we made our site customer centric: instead of having mobile phone batteries in 1 section, and hands free kits in another, and son on, we grouped everything by Brand/section and model/sub-section, so you could find everything for YOUR make and model of phone in 1 place. (You can find us at http://www.orate.co.uk). It had the nice effect of seeing our average lineitems / order go up.

In Actinic 6 we used a brilliant product replication tool from Jan Strassen at Mole-End, but needed to upgrade to 7 to get the voucher code feature. We thought we'd be able to duplicate products, but didn't realise that we would lose the custom text added to the base description in the short description. So "Mains Charger - Nokia 7650" on the website became "Mains Charger" (the name in the "original product) in the shopping cart, emails, and the orders. And we'd just gone live with 48k duplicates!

Norman Rouxel came to the rescue with a neat bit of programming.

If anybody else needs to use duplicates in this way, contact him, as he has an answer!

[Bruce]

Hi Norman,

Sorry for that, took it in the literal sense...

The 7.0.5 patch provides a stable solution, however we do recognise that this means that some functionality has been lost with regards to editable properties on the duplicates. The patch should only be applied where the customers do not need different values for the CUSTOMVARs.

Several different bugs have conspired to mess up the records in ProductProperties table for duplicate products. We will be looking at trying to get back support of editable CUSTOMVAR's in the next maintenance release. If someone does require the editable function on CUSTOMVAR's I would strongly suggest remaining on v7.0.4 till the issue is sorted.

Kind regards,

[NormanRouxel]

We will be looking at trying to get back support of editable CUSTOMVAR's in the next maintenance release...

That's encouraging news.

BTW: Richard (above) asked me if there was any reason not to upgrade to 7.0.5. This was before I knew about the above problems. I double-checked the 7.0.5 change log and since there was no mention of any change in how Custom Properties were managed, told him it seemed safe to go ahead. Big mistake.
I'm glad I wasn't in the same room when he discovered that the Properties on 48K duplicates were rendered inaccessible - such properties being essential for the searching and display of his site.
Luckily he'd backed everything up (both Site and a Snapshot) so was able to downgrade.