Issue with latest documentation build?

[ehogan]

Describe the bug

When I go to https://docs.esmvaltool.org/en/stable/ I can see in the title bar of my browser (Firefox) that this is using 2.7.1.dev0+<extrastuff>. I can change the version using the drop down menu in the lower left corner, and the search works correctly.

However, if I go to https://docs.esmvaltool.org/en/latest/ I can see in the title bar of my browser that this is using v2.8.0.dev123+<extrastuff>. However, from this view, I can't change the version as above and the search doesn't appear to be working.

@remi-kazeroni @valeriupredoi do you see the same issue?

[valeriupredoi]

hi @ehogan - good find - and very interesting, what I'm getting when I try searching for sn item is the neverending "Searching..." message (with moving dots) - see screenshot, I shall investigate 👍

[valeriupredoi]

RTD use the same theme (well, we took it from them) and their search now brings up a popup window which is strange - alas, it could be my Firefox which is from the 19th century, but at least whatever I input there gets found. I am going to try rebuild the latest see if the problem persists

[valeriupredoi]

OK I am not able to retrigger (thanks, RTD!). but it's not much point to anyway, since the latest PR build is displaying the same behaviour https://esmvaltool--3137.org.readthedocs.build/en/3137/index.html - can some of the @ESMValGroup/technical-lead-development-team please try the search in "latest", a PR, and "stable" doc builds please - it could well be that my Firefox is the culprit here. If it isn't then this should be raised with RTD since their theme is misbehaving

[remi-kazeroni]

There are really odd issues with the docs at the moment. I can reproduce what @valeriupredoi reported:

• The search function is hanging indefinitely for the latest version "Searching..."
• With latest, one cannot change the doc version to anything else. The version button is not clickable.
  
• Navigating between Tool and Core documentation using stable brings you to latest. One can try to click on these pages in the menu:
  1. https://docs.esmvaltool.org/en/stable/changelog.html
  2. https://docs.esmvaltool.org/projects/esmvalcore/en/stable/changelog.html
  3. https://docs.esmvaltool.org/en/stable/changelog.html (back to latest)

I wonder is this issue and ESMValGroup/ESMValCore#1987 are the same...

[valeriupredoi]

no - Core issue 1987 seems to be stemming from all the confusions we fed RTD with releases, not merging release commits etc etc - I think we should give it a bit of time now that we're done with all the releases, unconfuse itself. This, however, I think it's due to some bug in the RTD theme code - let me dig a bit deeper

[valeriupredoi]

OK so this is an issue with sphinx+sphinx_rtd_theme - in https://readthedocs.org/projects/esmvaltool/builds/19944281/ we have sphinx=5 and sphinx_rtd_theme=1.1.1 and all goes well, Search working nicely, and the build takes 35% less time. The thing is, I am not sure which one is the cause of it, since I can't pin sphinx_rtd_theme without sphinx getting downgraded to 5.0 - let me see if I can pin sphinx, then let the rtd free

[valeriupredoi]

righto! So with sphinx=5 and theme=1.2.0 all goes fine (and build takes short still) - see an older build https://readthedocs.org/projects/esmvaltool/builds/19837453/ - so it's the theme not talking well with the new sphinx=6.1.3 - for now, I'll pin sphinx and open an issue at sphinx_rtd_theme