OrchardCore.Workflows Publish Content task does not publish content

[AmyBlaine]

Describe the bug

The workflow module 'publish content' task fails to publish content when triggered by an event.

Orchard Core version

2.0.2 - Simple web application with 2.0.2 nuget packages
1.8.3 - Simple web application with 1.8.3 nuget packages
701c07e - OrchardCore.Cms.Web

To Reproduce

1. Setup site using Blog recipe
2. Navigate to the Admin Dashboard Features menu. Enable Workflows (OrchardCore.Workflows)
3. Import workflows with attached Recipe.json or manually create workflows
4. Recipe.json
5. Create a Simplified workflow or import workflow recipe
   • Add Event - Content Draft Saved
     • Select Content Types - Page
     • Save
     • Set as startup event.
   • Add Task - Publish Content
     • Leave settings blank
   • Connect the 'Done' outcome of the Content Draft Saved event to the Publish Content task.
   • Add Task - Notify
     • Notification Type - Warning
     • Message - Content was not published :(
   • Connect the 'Noop' outcome of the Publish Content task to the Warning Notification
   • Add Task - Notify
     • Notification Type - Success
     • Message - Content published :)
   • Connect the 'Published' outcome of the Publisch Content task to the Success Notification
   • Save the workflow
6. Navigate to Content Items
7. Create a new Page
   • Enter a title
   • Save Draft
8. Observations
   • Notification - Content was not published :(
   • Notification - Your Page draft has been saved
   • The content item has the draft status
9. Navigate to Workflows
10. View the instances for the workflow created above
    • A new instance should have been created 'a moment ago'
    • This instance should have a status of 'Finished'
11. Restarting the instance of the workflow results in successfully publishing the content item.
12. Observations
    • Notification - Content published :)
    • Notification - Workflow has been restarted
    • A new Workflow Instance has was 'Created a moment ago' and has the Finished label
13. Navigate to Content Items
14. The Content Item (Page) created above is now Published

Example #2

1. Create an Publish Approval Process workflow or import workflow recipe
   • Add Event - Content Draft Saved
     • Select Content Types - Page
     • Save
     • Set as startup event.
   • Add Event - User Task
     • Enter Title - Review content
     • Enter Actions - Approve, Reject
     • Select Roles - Administrator, Editor
     • Save
   • Connect the 'Done' outcome of the Content Draft Saved event to the Review Content event.
   • Add Task - Notify
     • Notification Type - Warning
     • Message - Content was rejected :(
   • Connect the 'Reject' outcome of the Review Content event to the Warning Notification
   • Add Task - Notify
     • Notification Type - Success
     • Message - Content published :)
   • Connect the 'Approve' outcome of the Review Content event to the Success Notification
   • Add Task - Publish Content
     • Leave settings blank
   • Connect the 'Done' outcome of the Success Notification to the Publish Content task
   • Add Task - Notify
     • Notification Type - Warning
     • Message - Content was not published :(
   • Connect the 'Noop' outcome of the Publish Content task to the Warning Notification
   • Add Task - Notify
     • Notification Type - Success
     • Message - Content published :)
   • Connect the 'Published' outcome of the Publisch Content task to the Success Notification
   • Save the workflow
2. Navigate to Content Items
3. Create a new Page
   • Enter a title
   • Save Draft and Continue
4. When page reloads, Approve and Save
5. Observations
   • Notification - Content approved :)
   • Notification - Content was not published :(
   • Notification - Your Page draft has been saved
   • The content item has the draft status
6. Navigate to Workflows
7. View the instances for the Publish Approval workflow created above
   • Two instances of the workflow exist
     • created 'a moment ago' (from Approve and Save) - This instance is halted
     • created 1 minute ago (from initial Save Draft and Continue) - This instance is finished
8. Restart the workflow instance
9. Observations
   • Notification - Workflow has been restarted
   • A new Workflow Instance has was 'Created a moment ago' and has the Halted label
10. Navigate to Content Items
11. The Content Item (Page) created above is still not Published

Expected behavior

The content item is published by the workflow when the Publish Content task is triggered.

The workflow does not need to be restarted for the publish content task to run successfully.

Observations

The content item is published when InlineEvent.ContentItemId is null which occurs when the workflow is restarted.

OrchardCore/src/OrchardCore.Modules/OrchardCore.Contents/Workflows/Activities/PublishContentTask.cs

Line 35 in 08de169

if (String.Equals(InlineEvent.ContentItemId, content.ContentItem.ContentItemId, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))

Logs and screenshots

Simplified Workflow

Example #2 Workflow

Logs
orchard-log-2024-10-30.log

Why is this important?

My goal is to configure a publishing approval process using workflows. Ultimately, a user with the author role will create a draft content item, then a user with an editor role will approve the content item prior to it being published.

The following workflow fails to publish a content item. While troubleshooting, I reproduced the same problem without inserting the User Task event as this propagates the number of workflow instances with each 'Approve and Save' action.

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[github-actions]

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[sebastienros]

Can you try this change?

if (!content.HasDraft())
{
    return Outcomes("Noop");
}

instead of

if (string.Equals(InlineEvent.ContentItemId, content.ContentItem.ContentItemId, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
{
    return Outcomes("Noop");
}

Then test with an UpdateContentTask before. Also from a user triggered event. And from a schedule? (triggering from a Content Handler or not could be why we had this InlineEvent code).

[hishamco]

[hishamco]

@AmyBlaine please test the related PR, I did a quick test, seems everything works as expected

[sebastienros]

We tested this change during triage. The ask here was to test more thoroughly with events triggers inline or not. And bonus with functional tests that would catch any regression in these tasks.

[hishamco]

Ah, I didn't know that you are testing that during triage, @AmyBlaine please do some test through UI, I will try to add a functional test

[AmyBlaine]

Here are the workflows I used to test. Recipe.json

Publish Approval Process on Content Draft Saved event

Test Publish Content with UpdateContentTask start event

For the 'Publish content on a schedule' workflow, another change may be needed.

For this test, I created a new content item, then set the contentItemId explicitly in the Publish Content task. The content item was not found here:

OrchardCore/src/OrchardCore/OrchardCore.ContentManagement/DefaultContentManager.cs

Line 118 in b60a530

else if (options.IsDraft || options.IsDraftRequired)

I tried this change assuming that when a content item is created, it is the latest version of the content item by default.

OrchardCore/src/OrchardCore/OrchardCore.ContentManagement/DefaultContentManager.cs

Line 567 in b60a530

if (options.IsDraft)

With this additional change, the 'Publish content on a schedule' workflow succeeds.

[AmyBlaine]

I tried to create a branch / pull request, but I need to be given write access. What's the process to get write access?

[sebastienros]

@AmyBlaine you need to fork the repository and do the changes on your fork.