REST products update category_ids cannot be removed (from #20481)

[siliconalchemy]

** Note: This is a continuation of #20481, which in turn is a continuation of #14038. Both of these issues were closed without a correct fix in place **

Preconditions and Steps to Reproduce

For example, if a product currently has custom_attribute { 'category_ids': '['10127', '10048', '10123', '10126'] }, and I want to remove two of the categories from the product by setting this to { 'category_ids': '['10127', '10048'] }.

I then update the product with /rest/all/V1/products/ with the updated data. I get a success returned, and any other product data is successfully updated, and categories can be added to, but trying to remove categories such as above fail silently. The category_ids remain with the original 4 categories, as in the example above.

Magento 2.2.3
Php 7.1, Mysql 5.7 (Percona Xtradb Cluster)
Expected Result

I expect to be able to remove categories. This worked until 2.2 upgrade.
Actual result

See description. Categories are not updated, but the update command reports success.

[m2-assistant]

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[siliconalchemy]

My workaround is to edit vendor/magento/module-catalog/Model/Category/Link/SaveHandler.php and change:
$processLinks = $this->mergeCategoryLinks($dtoCategoryLinks, $modelCategoryLinks);
to
$processLinks = $modelCategoryLinks;

Deleting categories then works perfectly for me, but I don't know what other impacts that could have.

[m2-assistant]

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[engcom-Charlie]

Hello @siliconalchemy

Thank you for contribution and collaboration!

We are not able to reproduce this issue on the latest 2.3-develop branch by provided steps.

Testing scenario:

1. Get the product which assigned to a lot of categories:
   

2. Update the product(make a PUT request without two categories):
   

3. Get the product again

Result:
Categories have been deleted:

We are closing this issue due to branch 2.2-develop was closed and

Magento no longer accepts pull requests and issues to the v2.2 release lines to focus all development efforts on v2.3.

See Accepted pull requests and ported code for more details

If you still faced this issue on 2.3 please create a new Issue with all required details according to Issue reporting guidelines

Thanks for your report!

[siliconalchemy]

Huh, yes I still have this issue in 2.3.3.

[engcom-Charlie]

@siliconalchemy i can't confirm issue of it only for 2.3.3( because 2.3.3 codebase has been merged in 2.3-develop) you can see info about it here:

[gdvisser]

As long as this is not fixed in Magento you can take this approach: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/68622618/magento-2-rest-api-cant-remove-category-ids/68623022#answer-68623022