[BUG] - Refresh required after delete/move/rename folder via terminal

[kcpevey]

Feature description

I deleted the folder where my gallery was supposed to be downloaded to. Now the UI won't let me fetch the latest changes. I think it thinks that I still have the latest? I added the folder back and I still can't fetch.

Value and/or benefit

Users should be able to recover from deleting the gallery folder.

Anything else?

No response

[krassowski]

Which folder? The one with .git or parent?

[kcpevey]

I deleted examples. Ah, I just realized from the error message when I click the folder icon that it's looking for examples/playground-examples. I recreated that folder, but I'm still in the same stuck situation. I can't pull the repo.

[kcpevey]

Its not clear from the plugin, what's going where. Based on the error message when I clicked on the folder icon - I'd say playground-examples is the .git folder?

[krassowski]

Can you delete playground-examples (but keep examples), and reload JupyterLab?

[kcpevey]

That worked.

I deleted playground-examples, but kept examples, reloaded jupyterlab. The plugin works again.

Also, I deleted examples entirely, reloaded Jupyterlab and the plugin worked again.

The reload was key.

[krassowski]

Normally it should refresh the status on delete:

jupyterlab-gallery/src/gallery.tsx

Lines 70 to 75 in 9de8f2c

	// if user deletes a directory, reload the state
	fileChanged.connect((_, args) => {
	if (args.type === 'delete') {
	this._load();
	}
	});

unless you renamed the folder (#29) or deleted/renamed/moved it from terminal, in which case it would update the status once the folder listing is refreshed (I think every 10 seconds?)

[kcpevey]

I deleted from the terminal. Deleting through the JLab UI would have required the painful process of deleting all the contents of the folder, plus viewing hidden files and deleting those as well.

So we have no way to catch deleted/renamed/moved from terminal without building a more complicated watcher?

[krassowski]

There is pretty advanced file watcher logic in jupyter-server (https://github.com/jupyter-server/jupyter_server_fileid), but deleting from terminal circumvents it.

Two solutions:

• we can have a custom watcher
• we can allow removing folder with the contents; of note this is not a jupyter restriction, locally for me folders are always deleted; the relevant configuration options are FileContentsManager.always_delete_dir and FileContentsManager.delete_to_trash; there is also an interaction with the filesystem used

[kcpevey]

I think you'll always have some people who operate from the terminal and find themselves in this situation.

Another solution would be an info bubble on the gallery card with a popup modal that warned me a refresh was required if the folder is deleted.

[krassowski]

an info bubble on the gallery card with a popup modal that warned me a refresh was required if the folder is deleted

If we already knew that we need to show the bubble, we could have refreshed the model in the background, eliminating the need for showing the bubble, right?

[krassowski]

I think you'll always have some people who operate from the terminal and find themselves in this situation.

Absolutely! Maybe the solution is along what you proposed, but instead triggering a forced model update on mouse hover if it has not been updated in last 3 seconds or so. This might be cheaper than having an always running file watcher.

[kcpevey]

If we already knew that we need to show the bubble, we could have refreshed the model in the background, eliminating the need for showing the bubble, right?

I was not thinking about a dynamic bubble. I was thinking of a static info bubble on all gallery cards at all times - what is this tile, what does it do, and also, note that if you delete the folder, you'll have to refresh the page.

[krassowski]

There is an issue on jupyter_server_fileid now about potentially making it watch the filesystem changes performed outside of jupyter: jupyter-server/jupyter_server_fileid#80