Forum OpenACS Development: Problem with notifications from Bug-Tracker

A study of the error log indicated that this was because an error was preventing the acs_mail_lite_queue being cleared. So the message was going out but a catch was logging an error and not deleting the message from the queue. Thus every sweep, the message goes out again.

I have spent about three hours now trawling the code to work out what is going on and can't get to the bottom of it.

Here is the error:

[25/Jul/2009:13:05:20][1791.81926][-sched:11-] Notice: dbinit: sql(localhost::webteamworks): '
            select
                  message_id as id,
                  creation_date,
                  locking_server,
                  to_addr,
                  cc_addr,
                  bcc_addr,
                  from_addr,
                  reply_to,
                  subject,
                  body,
                  package_id,
                  file_ids,
                  mime_type,
                  (case when no_callback_p = TRUE then 1 else 0 end) as no_callback_p,
                  extraheaders,
                  (case when use_sender_p = TRUE then 1 else 0 end) as use_sender_p
            from acs_mail_lite_queue
            where locking_server = '' or locking_server is NULL
        '
[25/Jul/2009:13:05:20][1791.81926][-sched:11-] Error: Error while sending queued mail: can't read "from_party_id": no such variable
[25/Jul/2009:13:05:20][1791.81926][-sched:11-] Error: Error while sending queued mail: can't read "from_party_id": no such variable

After nearly five hours of studying the code I have tracked the source of the log entry to the following in mail-tracking-callback-procs.tcl :

ad_proc -public -callback acs_mail_lite::send -impl mail_tracking {
    {-package_id:required}
    {-from_party_id:required}
    {-to_party_id:required}
    {-body:required}
    {-message_id:required}
    {-subject:required}
} {
    create a new entry in the mail tracking table
} {

    set log_id [mail_tracking::new -package_id $package_id \
            -sender_id $from_party_id \
            -recipient_ids $to_party_id \
            -body $body \
            -message_id $message_id \
            -subject $subject]

}

As -from_party_id is a required value I am not clear why I am getting a "can't read" error rather than having ad_proc baulk at the lack of a value being passed in.

Now I have to try :

i) Hard coding a value to see if that solves the problem.

ii) To find the calling proc to establish why the value doesn't get passed in.

Richard

The problem is not in notifications, which calls the acs-mail-lite apis correctly.

The parameter:

-to_party_id: required

needs to be changed to:

-to_addr: required

and the variable $to_party_id changed accordingly.

R.

I am fixing initially by doing party::get_by_email on each of the addresses that are passed in, but I suspect that this also needs to be done for the cc and bcc addresses.

I'll need to find a way to generate outgoing messages with lists of cc and bcc addressees as a test.

Any ideas?

R.

The complex_send code still exists. My reading of this is that the simple send process is only now invoked if the message is being sent my a user with a party_id, however I have no idea if this is indeed the case.

I can clearly see the potential for unregistered users to be able to send a message out, although in that case they should probably have to register. Even if they are simply asked for their email address I think the complex_send code would then handle it.

I really need to chat to someone who is close to that code. Who would be able to confirm or refute those assumptions?

R.

That's great - thanks for the information. That is really helpful and makes good sense.

On that basis then, all that is needed in each case is a check of whether the various arguments to be passed to the mail procs are integer keys or not. If so, look up the email address.

I guess in an ideal world, the mail procs would sort this out for themselves based on whatever value is passed, but the problem is as you say, that the signature of the call itself has changed.

Is it possible for a non-registered user to submit a bug?

I will modify my copy of the files relevant to the bug-tracker notifications and inevitably the mail tracking package but need to work out how to capture that and feed it back to the codebase. I presume I can checkout a single file and then commit it back in isolation?

On that score, does anyone know who the maintainer is for mail-tracking?

Anyway the mail tracking package is the problem. That needs to be updated.