Client Block assigned by default to non-existing region

Patch attached.

This issue was originally posted to the Ubercart Aegir integration project (uc_hosting) by mistake. Has now been moved to the correct project.

This fix did not make it into release 6.x-1.7, so here is an updated patch.

(note: this patch assumes that the patch from issue #1435114 has already been applied).

I have been using a theme other than "eldir" which does not have a region called "left", so I was frequently getting error messages to the effect that the block was assigned to an invalid region and had been disabled.

These messages would appear whenever I visited the administration pages, even though I had assigned the block to a valid region or had disabled it. I can only assume that it was because the base information was being refreshed via a call to hook_block.

The error messages have not appeared since I applied the patch. Perhaps I am missing something here?

I believe that I have now identified the cause of the problem. It is NOT because the client block is assigned by default to an invalid region (as this is the case for other blocks defined within the hostmaster set of modules).

The hook_block function in module hosting_client has the following code to define the block and to provide content for it.

function hosting_client_block($op = 'list', $delta = 0, $edit = array()) {
  $blocks = array();
  if (user_access('view client')) {
    switch ($op) {
      case 'list' :
        $blocks['hosting_clients'] = array('info' => t('Hosting clients'), 
        'enabled' => 1, 'region' => 'left', 'weight' => 10);
        break;
      case 'view' : 
        switch ($delta) {
          case 'hosting_clients':
            $blocks['title'] = t('Clients');
            $blocks['content'] = hosting_client_list();
            break;
        }
    }
  }
  return $blocks;
}

This will cause the block to vanish if a user without "view clients" permission triggers a scan of hook_block by Drupal. Drupal will then remove the information about the block from the system tables. The next time an administrator visits the block admin page, the block will re-appear as unassigned.

The function hook_block should restrict the "if" statement to just the returned content of the block, as per:

function hosting_client_block($op = 'list', $delta = 0, $edit = array()) {
  $blocks = array();
  switch ($op) {
    case 'list' :
      $blocks['hosting_clients'] = array('info' => t('Hosting clients'), 
      'enabled' => 1, 'region' => 'left', 'weight' => 10);
      break;
    case 'view' : 
      switch ($delta) {
        case 'hosting_clients':
          if (user_access('view client')) {
            $blocks['title'] = t('Clients');
            $blocks['content'] = hosting_client_list();
         }
          break;
      }
  }
  return $blocks;
}

This should stop the block from disappearing from its assigned region on a "unpredictable" basis as has been observed.

Patch attached.