Extensions automatically disabling themselves

chunkysquat

Hi everyone,

I've recently run into an issue with Flarum extensions (after using it with no problems since July 2022). I recently added a few new extensions to our site, and now the extensions I added are automatically being disabled with no user intervention at random times. It looks like each of the new extensions I've added automatically get removed from the extensions_enabled section in the settings table. Again this seems to happen at random and I cannot for the life of me figure out why it might be happening.

The result of this is that the site is still looking for those extensions, even though they are now disabled, and so the site simply breaks and says that there are no posts found (despite all our data still being present in the database).

Output of php flarum info below (this was run WHILE the extensions were disabled):
Flarum core: 1.7.1 PHP version: 8.0.21 MySQL version: 8.0.23 Loaded extensions: Core, date, libxml, openssl, pcre, zlib, filter, hash, json, pcntl, Reflection, SPL, session, standard, sodium, mysqlnd, PDO, xml, bcmath, calendar, ctype, curl, dom, mbstring, FFI, fileinfo, ftp, gd, gettext, gmp, iconv, igbinary, imagick, imap, intl, exif, msgpack, mysqli, pdo_mysql, pdo_pgsql, pdo_sqlite, pgsql, Phar, posix, readline, redis, shmop, SimpleXML, soap, sockets, sqlite3, sysvmsg, sysvsem, sysvshm, tokenizer, xmlreader, xmlwriter, xsl, zip, memcached, swoole, Zend OPcache +--------------------------------+---------+--------+ | Flarum Extensions | | | +--------------------------------+---------+--------+ | ID | Version | Commit | +--------------------------------+---------+--------+ | flarum-flags | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-likes | v1.7.0 | | | fof-polls | 1.3.0 | | | fof-passport | 1.0.0 | | | fof-nightmode | 1.5.1 | | | flarum-tags | v1.7.1 | | | flarum-suspend | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-subscriptions | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-sticky | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-statistics | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-pusher | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-mentions | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-markdown | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-lock | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-lang-english | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-emoji | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-embed | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-bbcode | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-approval | v1.7.0 | | | clarkwinkelmann-likes-received | 1.0.2 | | +--------------------------------+---------+--------+ Base URL: *redacted for privacy Installation path: *redacted for privacy Queue driver: sync Session driver: file Mail driver: smtp Debug mode: off

Output of php flarum info after re-enabling the extensions manually:
Flarum core: 1.7.1 PHP version: 8.0.21 MySQL version: 8.0.23 Loaded extensions: Core, date, libxml, openssl, pcre, zlib, filter, hash, json, pcntl, Reflection, SPL, session, standard, sodium, mysqlnd, PDO, xml, bcmath, calendar, ctype, curl, dom, mbstring, FFI, fileinfo, ftp, gd, gettext, gmp, iconv, igbinary, imagick, imap, intl, exif, msgpack, mysqli, pdo_mysql, pdo_pgsql, pdo_sqlite, pgsql, Phar, posix, readline, redis, shmop, SimpleXML, soap, sockets, sqlite3, sysvmsg, sysvsem, sysvshm, tokenizer, xmlreader, xmlwriter, xsl, zip, memcached, swoole, Zend OPcache +--------------------------------+---------+--------+ | Flarum Extensions | | | +--------------------------------+---------+--------+ | ID | Version | Commit | +--------------------------------+---------+--------+ | flarum-flags | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-suspend | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-approval | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-tags | v1.7.1 | | | flarum-likes | v1.7.0 | | | the-turk-mathren | 1.0.7 | | | sycho-profile-cover | v1.3.3 | | | katosdev-signature | 1.2 | | | fof-user-bio | 1.1.1 | | | fof-upload | 1.2.3 | | | fof-polls | 1.3.0 | | | fof-passport | 1.0.0 | | | fof-nightmode | 1.5.1 | | | fof-links | 1.1.3 | | | fof-forum-statistics-widget | 1.0.2 | | | fof-byobu | 1.1.8 | | | flarum-subscriptions | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-sticky | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-statistics | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-pusher | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-mentions | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-markdown | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-lock | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-lang-english | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-emoji | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-embed | v1.7.0 | | | flarum-bbcode | v1.7.0 | | | clarkwinkelmann-post-bookmarks | 1.0.0 | | | clarkwinkelmann-likes-received | 1.0.2 | | +--------------------------------+---------+--------+ Base URL: *redacted for privacy Installation path: *redacted for privacy Queue driver: sync Session driver: file Mail driver: smtp Debug mode: off

I assume this is caused by one of the extensions I recently enabled. These are the new extensions in question:

FoF Byobu
FoF Forum Statistics Widget
FoF Links
FoF Upload
FoF User Bio
MathRen
Post Bookmarks
Profile Cover
Signature

Could anyone please shed some light on what might be happening here? It is quite frustrating as it means our user base cannot access the site until we manually re-enable the extensions that got disabled.

Thanks in advance!

clarkwinkelmann

chunkysquat how long did it take to happen again, approximately? A few days? Or does it sometimes takes weeks/months to happen? If it happened in relatively short periods, do you know whether any admin opened the admin panel during that time or did it happen without any admin logged in?

What kind of web/database hosting are you using? Is the database on the same host as the webserver? Do you have a management panel for webserver/database upgrades and backups?

If it was related to backups there would likely also be other things rolled back apart from just the enabled extensions.

If none of this gives any hint, maybe it has something to do with Flarum extension dependency system. Though even if it dynamically changed which extension is enabled in which order I don't think it's supposed to edit the database.

chunkysquat

Hi clarkwinkelmann, thanks so much for your quick response.

It is usually happening a few days apart. It is likely that an admin opened the panel during that time, as I am not the only admin and I don't manage the forum.

We deploy our site through Laravel Forge, with the database being hosted on Laravel Vapor (AWS). I have actually inherited this site from our previous developer, so I'm not 100% familiar with how everything is set up, but I believe AWS manages the database backups.

From my research, I think it might be something to do with the extension dependencies, because I haven't changed anything else apart from enabling those extensions. I may just have to disable the extensions one-by-one, and see if that fixes the issue. The problem is I can't easily test whether I've actually fixed the problem, since it seems to be randomly disabling every few days.

So yeah - not really sure where to go from here...

Really appreciate your assistance!

luceos

Can you share the exact database value of extensions_enabled in the settings table when these additional extensions are enabled?

chunkysquat

Sure luceos

["flarum-flags","flarum-suspend","flarum-approval","flarum-tags","flarum-likes","the-turk-mathren","sycho-profile-cover","katosdev-signature","fof-user-bio","fof-upload","fof-polls","fof-passport","fof-nightmode","fof-links","fof-forum-statistics-widget","fof-byobu","flarum-subscriptions","flarum-sticky","flarum-statistics","flarum-pusher","flarum-mentions","flarum-markdown","flarum-lock","flarum-lang-english","flarum-emoji","flarum-embed","flarum-bbcode","clarkwinkelmann-post-bookmarks","clarkwinkelmann-likes-received"]

chunkysquat

Hi @luceos @clarkwinkelmann, do you have any ideas on this? It's still happening every two days or so 🙁

clarkwinkelmann

chunkysquat I recently investigated some extension dependency issues, but from my tests the only time extensions would get disabled is while enabling or disabling another extension. I can't see how it would happen without admin intervention.

Are you automatically running any Composer package update in the background?

Have you tried updating to Flarum 1.8 yet? I don't think there's any specific change that would impact you but it would be interesting to know whether the problem persists.