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UT Drupal Kit

PSA – Issue with page cloning can cause data loss

NOTE: If the content editors on your site do not use the page clone feature in the UT Drupal Kit, you can disregard this message.

Based on customer reports, ITS has discovered a specific scenario in which page cloning in UT Drupal Kit 3 can result in permanent loss of content.

The root cause of this issue has already been identified, and a permanent fix is in development but will not be available before the end of 2022. In the meantime, site owners can take simple actions to avoid being impacted by this issue.

Scenario

Please note: This scenario only applies to Drupal content types which use Layout Builder, such as the “Flex Page” content type included in the UT Drupal Kit. Pages which do not use Layout Builder are NOT vulnerable to this issue.

  1. Clone an existing page “A” to a new page “B”
  2. Delete original page “A”
  3. Any blocks on page “B” which were originally cloned from the now-deleted page “A” will disappear. This data is not recoverable.

Temporary workaround

Do not delete any pages which were used as the “source” for cloning to new pages.

Until a permanent solution is provided in January, source pages that need to be removed from public view should be marked as “unpublished” rather than deleted.

Long-term solution

ITS will provide a permanent solution for this issue in January 2023, either as a hotfix or as part of the 3.10.0 maintenance release.

The planned fix will:

  • Prevent any already cloned pages from losing content if their original source pages are deleted in the future.
  • Prevent the same problem from occurring on any pages cloned in the future.
  • Provide a report for site owners showing whether any existing cloned pages have already been impacted by missing blocks.

For further questions, or if you suspect that you may have already been impacted by this issue, please open a ticket by emailing drupal-kit-support@utlists.utexas.edu.

By Paul Grotevant

Paul Grotevant is the Senior IT Manager of Web Content Management Solutions for Information Technology Services at the University of Texas at Austin.