Updating a discussion via Moderator controls moves the discussion to a different board

[yshish]

Expected behavior

In Chimp&See we work with lots of guides and lists we often update. In my case, I'm responsible for adding every new hashtag to the official List - this list is locked so no one could add comments there. When updating the List with a new hashtag I have to unlock the discussion first via the Moderator controls, edit the List, and then lock it again. After the changes I should be able to find the post on the same board as it was before the update.

Current behavior

Usually it works as expected. But sometimes I cannot find the List on the Guides&Lists board where it belongs. Instead I find it on the 'Announcements' board. No one from the team moves it there though. Another moderator noticed the Moderator Controls sometimes(!) display an incorrect board in the drop down for 'Board' location - it seems to be displaying the 1st listed board instead of the current one, in our cases - 'Announcements'. She noticed that while updating a different discussion than me. It took me several attempts to duplicate this issue but I succeeded. So it seems it was me all the time who moved the post to another board while updating it. But as you see, not intentionally. I think this shouldn't happen. And if so then it should behave consistently, not randomly.

Steps to replicate

Go to f.e. this discussion on the C&S Talk, open the Moderator Controls and look at the board location displayed in the drop down box. Compare it with the actual location of the discussion (displayed at the top of the Talk, just below the 'Chimp&See Talk' headline). Repeat until you get to see the 'Announcements' there instead of the 'Guides&Lists'.

Additional information

It doesn't affect only my List but other posts on C&S Talk. And perhaps even other projects (didn't tested yet). The other moderator uses a different OS/browser than me. I'm waiting for her reply. Will update with her details then.

• Operating system: Ubuntu, Linux
• Browser: Chrome 107

Screenshot (before taking the screenshot I spend some time away from my comp. The browser console didn't display any errors at first so I believe they are not related lol).

[yshish]

Here's what the other mod was using:

Chrome Version 108.0.5359.125 (Official Build) (64-Bit) (newest version) on a Workstation with Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H2, 64bit processor but it happened also with older versions of browser and operating system. Actually, since we use the new platform.

[yshish]

Has anyone seen this report?

[eatyourgreens]

Thanks for reporting this @yshish.

That's definitely a bug in our code. It's hard to reproduce on a fast network connection but I'll leave this note to come back to later. This select menu will default to the first item if discussion.board_id isn't set when the page first loads eg. if the Panoptes Talk API is slow and it takes a while to fetch the board. https://github.com/zooniverse/Panoptes-Front-End/blob/fbe426d0f5f3cc2d79a6b8e2b496032bff854f66/app/talk/discussion.cjsx#L356-L360

[eatyourgreens]

Changing defaultValue to value there should almost certainly fix it.

[yshish]

@eatyourgreens Thank you, Jim! (I was afraid it got forgotten over the Christmas. :))

[eatyourgreens]

Hi Zuzi! I think we figured out why this was happening, and it should be fixed now.

[yshish]

@eatyourgreens Awesome! Thank you :)

[yshish]

@eatyourgreens I have very bad news. It is still happening :( I've just received an email with screenshots from a colleague. Could you please look at it again? Will you need some more details?

[yshish]

Just opened the mod controls to update my discussion and noticed the incorrect board displayed there. The browser console errors are different than the last time. In case it helps:

[yshish]

OK, tried to open the same discussion mod controls again in a new browser tab. The issue happened again but with no errors in the browser console!

[eatyourgreens]

Thanks! That’s useful to know. Those notifications errors aren’t related to the problem with the drop-down menu.

[yshish]

@eatyourgreens Just realized that it happens almost every single time when I work with the linked Chimp&See discussion but I have never experienced that when updating a discussion on the WesternShield Camera Watch using the same mod controls. Could it be project specific?

[yshish]

Possible steps to replicate:

1st way (getting a correct display of the Moderator controls): I've just tried getting to the C&S problematic discussion via a direct link in the Field Guide chapter called # Official hashtag information (here's the link: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/sassydumbledore/chimp-and-see/talk/2278/899975) and when clicking on the Moderation controls, it displayed correctly.

2nd way (getting the incorrect display): Then I entered the discussion the way as usually - I went to the project Talk, clicked on the board called "Guides & Lists" and then clicked on the discussion there. The Moderation controls loaded with the incorrect board!

I repeated these steps several times (both ways of getting to the discussion) and it seems to be displayed incorrectly only when getting there via the Talk board (2nd way). It never happened via the Field guide direct link. Could anyone try it whether it is just me or whether it really depends on the way of how I get to the discussion? Thanks :)

[eatyourgreens]

Thanks @yshish, that’s really useful. I will try to take another look at this, this week.

[yshish]

Have you fixed it? :) Seems to be working today (4 times without any troubles so far).

[eatyourgreens]

@yshish I haven't made any changes, but glad to hear that it seems to be working now.

[yshish]

Sigh, it has just happened again :(

[eatyourgreens]

I'll take another look at this. I think you are right, that there is something about Chimp & See Talk is different from Talk for other projects.