It's been almost 2 weeks since modules, themes, and distributions hosted on Drupal.org have been packaging releases reliably. The list of issues and fixes is being compiled at #2132659: [META] Problems with Project Release Packaging. Every step in the process from promoting sandboxes to full releases, updating a supported release, downloading dev snapshots with the download link or drush has issues.
Every day developers unaware of the existing issues try to update their project, run into problems, and create new issues in various queues (d7qa, project, infrastructure, webmaster).
Can you imagine having these types of issues on GitHub and instead of posting a notice about the problem, GitHub waited for users to experience the issue and then find a related issue in one of 4 or 5 support queues? Please do something proactive about this.
The impact of snapshot packages dates not updating for 2 weeks goes beyond project maintainers. Are users just supposed to know to download the snapshot even though the date says it hasn't changed?
Every day more projects are losing the links to their supported packages on their project page after an update. Users still see updates in their update status, but can't find the download on the project page.
A lot of progress has been made on understanding and resolving the issues in the last few days, but the issues persist. The issues are bad, but not acknowledging the problems where people will see them before experiencing them is only making it worse. Please update the site status message to include a link to a summary of these issues and a short description about what is being done. Something like...
Drupal.org Drupal 7 upgrade is live! PROJECT RELEASE AND PACKAGING ISSUES EXIST. See F.A.Q. for changes.
| Comment | File | Size | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| #4 | 2134179-temporary-message.patch | 1010 bytes | tvn |
Comments
Comment #1
infojunkieAgreed, it's a pretty confusing situation.
Comment #2
tvn commentedThanks for your help with the queues and keeping that meta issue up-to-date Kevin. We are going to add a message and link to the meta issue via drupal_set_message() on release nodes, release views and project nodes today.
The top red banner will be removed completely, as it's been almost 2 weeks since the launch.
Comment #3
tvn commentedI am thinking something like:
"We are currently experiencing troubles with the project release packaging. Please see this issue for more details."
Comment #4
tvn commentedPatch attached. Fleshed out the wording with greggles on IRC.
Comment #5
sylus commentedYeah 100% agree with this. The notification would have been greatly appreciated and at least mitigated some frustration.
Comment #6
stefanwray commented@tvn when are we likely to see this notification posted?
Comment #7
tvn commentedIt just needs to be deployed on production. Drumm will do so real soon.
Comment #8
mpotter commentedThe message in #4 is geared towards module maintainers. Might want to add a sentence for general users thanking them for their patience with module maintainers while this gets resolved since the issues are preventing us from releasing module updates to fix problems. Don't want people to think we are just ignoring our issue queues. (But any message is better than none, so don't hold it up for rewording)
I posted a message to the top of my OpenAtrium project page, but I definitely support some sort of global message on all project pages, especially now that the main D7 update banner is gone.
Comment #9
stefanwray commented@tvn when are we likely to see this notification posted?
Comment #10
stefanwray commentedsorry I posted twice
Comment #11
kreynen commented@mpotter isn't alone with trying to do something to support users looking for updates.
https://drupal.org/project/raygun
http://thereisamoduleforthat.com/content/introducing-views-share
Why are you leaving it up to individual maintainers to tell users trying to find project downloads about the problem? This has been an issue for some projects more than two weeks now!
Comment #12
drummCommitted & deployed.
Comment #13
drummWe should remove this when the issues are fixed.
Comment #14
elijah lynnYes please don't remove this just yet. The only way I realized the issue just now was because of this message, which was very helpful in preserving my sanity!
Comment #15
tvn commentedNo worries, we'll remove it only when #2132659: [META] Problems with Project Release Packaging is fixed.
Comment #16
stefanwray commented@tvn . . . why is this message in green rather than the usual red that is normal for warning messages?
when i was sent a link to look at the notice, i didn't even get it right away that the link was about the notice because of the friendly green
Comment #17
mcrittenden commentedAgreed with #16 -- this isn't a big deal and something is DEFINITELY better than nothing, but the juxtaposition of a friendly green check mark with the "some things are broken" message was a bit confusing at first.
Comment #18
jonathan1055 commentedFrom #2132659: [META] Problems with Project Release Packaging Comment 177 to 187 can the mesasge be limited to only those with Git permission, as per webchick's suggestion. That would really help to avoid so many off-topic posts to that issue
Jonathan
Comment #19
tvn commentedI think it's time to remove the message completely. Most critical issues were addressed already. I talked to a number of module maintainers who had an impression that it's not safe to create releases and they were waiting and not doing that.
Comment #20
tvn commentedCommitted a patch for this, should be deployed soon.