Lectures have become unstable - need to fix!

[Ironman28]

If a new clip is added to an existing lecture, it makes all the clips in that lecture disappear. This has happened several times with Music for Econ (and I have since reconstructed it manually!):
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/oroark/lectures/music-for-econ
Also -- this one lost all its media -- clips simply disappeared one day:
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/cmarez/lectures/lecture.2013-01-07.2328475602

[ahelme]

Hi Steve - that second link does not appear to be a properly saved lecture, judging by its strange URL. I might list that issue as a separate ticket.
https://huboard.com/plumi/criticalcommons.content/#/milestones/issues/111129087

[ahelme]

Okay testing the original issue now. I just clicked edit on my test file (also with timestamp URL due to other issue):100:
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/anna/lectures/lecture.2015-04-06.9796008193/edit?_authenticator=cedf11db95cbfd471bd21586e612e7f3661a7303

On this page, I see all my original clips linked in there.

I made no changes, and saved the lecture.

My lecture is perfectly fine.
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/anna/lectures/lecture.2015-04-06.9796008193

Okay, so I will make a change, and see if that provokes the bug:

• adding text to the Body produced no bug as per Steve's finding
• editing the Title produced no bug as per Steve's finding
• searching for clips with the term "cars" and then selecting some additional clips produced no bug as per Steve's finding

[ahelme]

I just searched for the original search term "cyborgs" again and added more clips - no error so far!

[ahelme]

Changing the thumbnail didn't cause a problem either!

[ahelme]

Hmmm. Steve, I can't reproduce the bug - can you possibly think of anything that might have lead up to this, or can you reproduce the bug yourself?

[Ironman28]

Gah! I tried adding dozens of clips to your Cyborg lecture, but I can't make them all disappear! I don't know what to say. The problem with Music for Econ must be some sort of user-error. Likewise the University of California lecture. I'm nervous about doing nothing, though, because this problem has happened more than once and I have been advising people NOT to use lectures until we fix them.

[ahelme]

Well... we could keep testing this, and try to reproduce an error!

Perhaps Markos could have a look/think to see if there might be some other strange reason that the clip associations might be deleted upon editing a lecture...

Markos do you think it is plausible that there could perhaps be some javascript error or unreliability of that clip system, that pops up intermittently? Or.... another cause?

[mgogoulos]

I remember I have also noticed this in the past, but cannot reproduce it. I have copied an existing lecture, and added - deleted clips for some time but was unable to break it. One (lame) solution is to copy a lecture before editing it, ideally we need example details of what went wrong to debug the issue - if this is still an issue. But I would definitely recommend users keep adding (and editing) lectures!