Error when updating password

Hi Guys,

A couple of member have now written to me after trying to reset their passwords. They have reported that the site returns the message:

"The field cms_smart_topic_notification is required and...", this is unchecked for their accounts.

Does anyone have any idea what this is all about? This is new since the 10.0.43 - 45 update.

TQ

 
 

That's weird.

I added new server-side field validation in 10.0.45. But it shouldn't be applying to that particular field. And my testing was not picking up on that.

As a work-around, tell them temporarily to go to their notifications settings when editing their profile and tick the "smart topic notifications" box. This means they will only receive one notification of new replies until they view that topic again, opposed to receiving a new notification for every reply even if they have not viewed the topic again yet.

Please add to the tracker as well if you could… My View - Composr CMS feature tracker

Thanks Patrick.

If they have forgotten their password, they are unable to change it themselves but I have been doing so for anyone that lets me know they have had an issue.

I'll add it to the tracker.

TQ

 
 

Hi Patrick,

Any update on this issue?

Even though I'm only getting a couple of emails a day, there is a significantly larger number of attempts displayed in the action log. With a membership of over 89,000 I am concerned that I will be loosing traffic because not everyone is aware of my direct email address.

I would very much appreciate it if you could take another look at this problem.

Kind regards

TQ
 

Hello TQ,

Bug fixes right now are low priority because I'm back-logged with client work (and getting v11 alpha1 out the door also takes priority over v10 ATM). I'm currently the only active developer for Composr CMS, so things will take time especially since there is no formal financial sponsor for Composr (and it will stay that way given we are switching to a Bazaar model, but the downside is that it will be harder to find developers as many people cannot afford to develop for free).

If your site has over 80,000 members, then I'd highly advise you consider hiring a developer for ongoing work so they can fix bugs for you promptly instead of waiting for us to get to it. Remember that Composr is an open source and volunteer project.

I can be contracted if you need a developer to help fix and manage your site quicker than releases can be made. Please let me know if you'd like to go that route. By contracting me and paying for my work, you are also indirectly funding my ability to work on Composr itself, so it's a win-win. Also check out the Composr partners for other developers.

Patrick Schmalstig said

Hello TQ,

Bug fixes right now are low priority because I'm back-logged with client work (and getting v11 alpha1 out the door also takes priority over v10 ATM). I'm currently the only active developer for Composr CMS, so things will take time especially since there is no formal financial sponsor for Composr (and it will stay that way given we are switching to a Bazaar model, but the downside is that it will be harder to find developers as many people cannot afford to develop for free).

If your site has over 80,000 members, then I'd highly advise you consider hiring a developer for ongoing work so they can fix bugs for you promptly instead of waiting for us to get to it. Remember that Composr is an open source and volunteer project.

I can be contracted if you need a developer to help fix and manage your site quicker than releases can be made. Please let me know if you'd like to go that route. By contracting me and paying for my work, you are also indirectly funding my ability to work on Composr itself, so it's a win-win. Also check out the Composr partners for other developers.

From “Post #9,660”, 21st February 2024, 2:09 pm

OUCH.

TQ can you post as much as you can about the issue here. Maybe we can take a look at the failure and sort it out.

@Malatesa TQ apologies, my response was very blunt and forward. I've had a history of people bugging me for free work (which I often cannot do), so I default to responding like that sometimes. I also had a brain fart and somehow thought this was a private communication.

The community can definitely come together as well and we can all figure it out. I'd encourage that. Thank you for understanding and dealing with my frustrations and lapse of judgment.

Fixed MANTIS-5534 (No server-side field validation for field hooks (catalogues)) (7a460e1e) · Commits · Composr ecosystem / Composr · GitLab

This is the commit where I implemented the server side field validation. The bug is likely somewhere in there. Once I have a free moment, I'll investigate as well.

@Patrick Schmalstig  I wrote this yesterday because I was just as pi$$ed as you were but I think it needs to be said.
 
Malatesa , thank you for your response, I really appreciate it.

Since the 44,45 update, any attempt by a user to change their password returns the error: The field cms_smart_topic_notification is required and cannot be left blank.

TQ
 

@TQ

I have no knowledge of who is / was a Patreon supporter and who isn't / wasn't. That's something Chris ran to generate an additional source of funding for Composr. Now that we're switching to a Bazaar model, I honestly need to check in with him and see what he wants to do with the Patreon. But that's a topic for another day.

I am interested in resolving a problem I created. But sometimes I can't do it as fast as others want me to. Clients come first in my workload. This was agreed upon between myself and Chris. We also discussed that v10 would take a bit of a back-burner in favor of getting v11 out the door. That doesn't mean I wouldn't focus on v10, but rather I wouldn't pay particular attention to it unless something critical came up or I had some downtime with everything else. This does not fall under the critical category because it doesn't outright break sites, plus there is a known workaround.

You could have placated me by saying something like 'I'm very busy at the moment but will look into it as soon as I possibly can' and I would have settled for that, with understanding.

I probably should have, yes. But I didn't. This is why: I already asked you to add the issue to the tracker, and you already did so. Therefore, I interpreted the additional prompt as nagging, which got under my skin in the same way I get irritated when people want me to do (unpaid) work in a timely manner. This was further escalated from me thinking in error that this was a private topic.

My thought process is the following: "Once an issue is on the tracker, they acknowledge that a developer will get to it at their earliest convenience, and no further action (including additional prompting) is necessary." Perhaps I am wrong and this isn't quite as obvious as I had hoped. If that's the case, please let me know and I can put some sort of message as a success message when an issue is submitted letting people know a developer will address it at their earliest convenience. I'll have Chris review it with me to ensure it does not sound brash.

I will also consider some way to visually make private topics more obvious / distinct from public forums. If I made this mistake, I can see others making the same mistake as well. And that would be a big problem.

As to the problem, I am considering setting the column for Smart Notifications (cms_f_member_custom_fields.field_56)  to 1 for all members because this is a big issue to me, maybe you could have suggested that yourself.

I'm not sure that's going to work because the required validation check runs on all custom fields (unless you're talking about forcing the value to 1 and not the field ID). You could alternatively add an additional guard on the if condition for custom fields that specifies the field is not field_56. That way, field_56 never falls into the warn_exit condition and thus you won't get that error in theory. I'll look into it further today to see if there's a permanent way to do this; we can't always assume that field will be #56.

Your community is important to you, more than I think you appreciate, especially those that have experienced the exceptional support that Chris provided. I know that it cost him dearly but there is middle ground.

It is. As mentioned, I had a brain fart and thought this was a private topic for some odd reason. I didn't realize until Malatesa responded that it wasn't. Had I not thought this was private, I would have suggested in this topic for others to chip in with suggestions. But because I thought in error and probably under my stress that it was a private topic, I therefore assumed no one else would be able to see it and thus such suggestion would have been pointless (except maybe to suggest opening a topic up on the forum).

Maybe you could take a look at one or two of your 'Meditation and Harmony' twitch feeds.

Do not bring up unrelated personal matters/content from outside platforms. Based on the context, I can only assume you're doing so to find more reasons to attack / rebuttal me even if they have nothing to do with the topic itself. This serves no constructive purpose and will only escalate problems further.

This is a storm in a teacup for both of us so we need to readdress what we are looking at here, it's just a bug!

Agreed. Here are my take-aways, ignoring everything else which was not relevant:

• The required field validation needs to exclude smart topic notifications. Or, perhaps it is a symptom of a larger issue with tickboxes (ticks should generally never be required unless you explicitly want the member to tick them, e.g. to agree to something. If the smart notifications tick is marked required, it shouldn't be, so I'll remove that flag).
• We (the developers with the feedback of the community) need to reassess the developer-community relationship especially pertaining to the understanding of open source and free (as in freedom) and the switch to the Bazaar model. We may need to add an additional message on the tracker that shows after submitting an issue just letting someone know their issue is acknowledged and developers will address it at their earliest convenience (perhaps with a link that takes them to a page explaining what "free as in freedom" means). I'll consult with Chris and Adam on this as well.
• The private topic UI needs to be visually distinct from the forum topic screen. They're too similar and can be confused. This is probably not something I'll do for v10 but rather v11.
• We (the developers with feedback from the community) need to decide what we are going to do with the Patreon. I believe it might be Chris' personal Patreon, so if that's the case, the decision solely lies on him.

Thank you for your considered response and thanks also for progressing the bug report.

I think it's time to remove this thread from the forum as it is inappropriate to see us bickering here, your choice of course.

TQ
 

Patrick Schmalstig said

@Malatesa TQ apologies, my response was very blunt and forward. I've had a history of people bugging me for free work (which I often cannot do), so I default to responding like that sometimes. I also had a brain fart and somehow thought this was a private communication.

The community can definitely come together as well and we can all figure it out. I'd encourage that. Thank you for understanding and dealing with my frustrations and lapse of judgment.

Fixed MANTIS-5534 (No server-side field validation for field hooks (catalogues)) (7a460e1e) · Commits · Composr ecosystem / Composr · GitLab

This is the commit where I implemented the server side field validation. The bug is likely somewhere in there. Once I have a free moment, I'll investigate as well.

From “Post #9,670”, 23rd February 2024, 3:16 am

You're doing an amazing job. Thanks very much for all of your work.

Malatesa said

You're doing an amazing job. Thanks very much for all of your work.

Appreciated.

TQ said

Thank you for your considered response and thanks also for progressing the bug report.

I think it's time to remove this thread from the forum as it is inappropriate to see us bickering here, your choice of course.

TQ
 

From “Post #9,683”, 24th February 2024, 7:51 am

Actually it's your choice since you created the topic. I can either remove it completely, or I can close it and sink it so it's still technically available for viewing to see the other constructive discussion, but it will appear at the bottom of the topic list (e.g. you'd have to page to the last pages to see it in the forum).

A bug fix is now available at 0005614: Error when updating password and smart topic notifications disabled - Composr CMS feature tracker

Please read the instructions carefully and let me know if the fix worked. Thank you!

Thank you Patrick, it worked flawlessly.

TQ