Hidden_at field in Posts table not working?

m4v3rick

Tried to recover some deleted post for a user and wanted to use the "hidden_at" field but the date in there was for all posts the same (which shouldn't be because he didn't delete everything on the same date).

So I tried to delete some of my own test posts every day for a few days and the date (2020 something) in the "hidden_at" never changed.
What is the actual purpose of that field?

I thought I could identify all deleted posts on a special day with it. "hidden_user_id" seems to be correct though.

clarkwinkelmann

This is the relevant code https://github.com/flarum/framework/blob/v1.3.1/framework/core/src/Post/CommentPost.php#L94-L104

I'm not seeing any obvious bug, it should contain the timestamp for when the hide action was performed.

I don't think hidden_user_id is used at all to decide if a post is hidden or not, it's just there to provide information about who hid the post if available. hidden_at being null or not null is the part used in the logic. It shouldn't matter what exact date it actually contains.

m4v3rick

clarkwinkelmann

Well you could easily check it. The date doesn't really change if I hide a post. There is some random date inside and not the actual date when the post was hidden.

clarkwinkelmann shouldn't matter what exact date it actually contains.

So why using two fields then if a flag would do? Imho the two fields are just perfect as they are if filled proper.

e.g. User deletes a lot of posts but a few days later realizes he wants them to be restored and asks if it could be done. So I made an update script checking for his user_id (hidden_user_id) and, because he remembers the day but doesn't want all posts beeing recovered, the date he deleted hundreds of posts. <-- This doesn't work because the date field (hidden_at) is not filled proper.

Just asking if it should which you agreed on as it seems. So I might report a bug then?

clarkwinkelmann

m4v3rick shouldn't matter what exact date it actually contains

I meant it shouldn't matter if the goal is to manually hide a post by force. But since the date is displayed in the frontend (to post owner and moderators who can see the soft deleted post), the date should probably still be set to a sensible value. But it's just "cosmetic", it won't impact the access control logic.

What's your Flarum version? Can you share your php flarum info output? On my 1.3.1 test install I cannot replicate the issue. The timestamp in the database for hidden_at is different for each deleted post and matches with my system date.

Can you share the exact date value you have in every column? It might give us some hint as to where that fixed value might come from.

It's possible an extension is manipulating the date after Flarum sets it, or that a difference in timezone between the system, PHP and MySQL creates an issue.

m4v3rick

clarkwinkelmann

No idea if it was the problem but because you asked for the exact date I checked it again.
On that date I was doing the maria db updates on my server.

The query I tried was:
select count(*) as quantity, date(hidden_at) from posts where user_id = 36 and hidden_user_id = 36 group by date(hidden_at);

It just gave me one date, only one result. But because that date reminded me of the updates, I restarted the whole linux server and let the query run again. Suddenly I got around 200 rows in my resultset with the same query. Could it have been some weird caching error during the maria db updates? Anyhow, it seems to be resolved. Thanks for looking into it.

Here's my flarum info - just in case someone else has a similar issue:

php flarum info
Flarum core 1.3.1
PHP version: 8.1.7
MySQL version: 10.3.34-MariaDB-0+deb10u1
Loaded extensions: Core, date, libxml, openssl, pcre, zlib, filter, hash, json, pcntl, Reflection, SPL, session, standard, sodium, mysqlnd, PDO, xml, calendar, ctype, curl, dom, mbstring, FFI, fileinfo, ftp, gd, gettext, iconv, exif, mysqli, pdo_mysql, Phar, posix, readline, shmop, SimpleXML, sockets, sysvmsg, sysvsem, sysvshm, tokenizer, xmlreader, xmlwriter, xsl, zip, Zend OPcache
+------------------------------------+---------+--------+
| Flarum Extensions                  |         |        |
+------------------------------------+---------+--------+
| ID                                 | Version | Commit |
+------------------------------------+---------+--------+
| flarum-flags                       | v1.3.0  |        |
| flarum-approval                    | v1.3.0  |        |
| flarum-tags                        | v1.3.0  |        |
| flarum-suspend                     | v1.3.1  |        |
| flarum-markdown                    | v1.3.0  |        |
| flarum-likes                       | v1.3.0  |        |
| afrux-forum-widgets-core           | v0.1.7  |        |
| flarum-subscriptions               | v1.3.1  |        |
| fof-byobu                          | 1.1.6   |        |
| v17development-seo                 | v1.8.0  |        |
| therealsujitk-gifs                 | v4.1.1  |        |
| sycho-move-posts                   | v0.1.6  |        |
| nearata-no-self-likes              | v1.2.0  |        |
| justoverclock-welcomebox           | 1.3.6   |        |
| justoverclock-last-post-useravatar | 0.1.8   |        |
| justoverclock-events-countdown     | 0.1.8   |        |
| justoverclock-country-flags        | 0.2.1   |        |
| justoverclock-contactme            | 0.2.3   |        |
| fof-username-request               | 1.0.1   |        |
| fof-user-directory                 | 1.2.3   |        |
| fof-upload                         | 1.2.2   |        |
| fof-terms                          | 1.1.2   |        |
| fof-split                          | 1.0.1   |        |
| fof-spamblock                      | 1.0.2   |        |
| fof-sitemap                        | 1.0.3   |        |
| fof-share-social                   | 1.1.0   |        |
| fof-recaptcha                      | 1.1.0   |        |
| fof-pretty-mail                    | 1.0.1   |        |
| fof-polls                          | 1.0.5   |        |
| fof-pages                          | 1.0.4   |        |
| fof-nightmode                      | 1.3.1   |        |
| fof-merge-discussions              | 1.3.0   |        |
| fof-links                          | 1.1.1   |        |
| fof-linguist                       | 1.0.4   |        |
| fof-ignore-users                   | 1.0.2   |        |
| fof-html-errors                    | 1.1.0   |        |
| fof-forum-statistics-widget        | 1.0.2   |        |
| fof-formatting                     | 1.0.2   |        |
| fof-follow-tags                    | 1.1.5   |        |
| fof-drafts                         | 1.1.2   |        |
| fof-disposable-emails              | 1.0.0   |        |
| fof-default-user-preferences       | 1.1.1   |        |
| fof-cookie-consent                 | 1.1.0   |        |
| fof-bbcode-details                 | 1.0.0   |        |
| fof-ban-ips                        | 1.0.2   |        |
| fof-analytics                      | 1.0.0   |        |
| flarum-sticky                      | v1.3.0  |        |
| flarum-statistics                  | v1.3.0  |        |
| flarum-mentions                    | v1.3.1  |        |
| flarum-lock                        | v1.3.0  |        |
| flarum-lang-german                 | 1.3.1   |        |
| flarum-lang-french                 | v3.8.0  |        |
| flarum-lang-english                | v1.3.0  |        |
| flarum-emoji                       | v1.3.0  |        |
| flarum-bbcode                      | v1.3.0  |        |
| extiverse-mercury                  | 0.2.0   |        |
| darkle-fancybox                    | 1.1.2   |        |
| clarkwinkelmann-emojionearea       | 1.0.0   |        |
| clarkwinkelmann-circle-groups      | 1.0.1   |        |
| askvortsov-moderator-warnings      | v0.6.1  |        |
| askvortsov-categories              | v3.0.6  |        |
| afrux-online-users-widget          | v0.1.6  |        |
| acpl-mobile-tab                    | 1.1.0   |        |
+------------------------------------+---------+--------+
Base URL: 
Installation path: /
Queue driver: sync
Mail driver: smtp
Debug mode: off