Answered Same alias for published and unpublished resources

Hi, I'm using MODX Revolution 2.2.6-pl (traditional).

Normally I cannot create two resources with same parent with same alias as MODX won't let me save second resource.
But if I create resource #1 and set its alias to, say, 'hello' and save it as unpublished, then I can create resource #2
and save it published with alias set to 'hello' - MODX won't stop me.

So for now I have two resources with the same uri. If I try to preview the published resource with 'hello' alias, the following happens:
if id of unpublished resource is lower then that of published, it tries to display the unpublished page and so redirects me to homepage;
if, on the contrary, id of published resource is lower than that of unpublished, it displays a published one.

I tried to dig into MODX files and found out that if there are two resources with the same uri, say, 'hello', in $modx->aliasMap['hello'] will be the lowest id of documents with uri 'hello' regardless if the document is published or not.

I'd call it a bug, because if MODX allows to have duplicate uris for unpublished resources, it should always show the published one when we request this uri (but not the one with lowest id as it does now). Or any alias duplication should be forbidden.

What do you think about it?

To begin with, I think you should upgrade your site, if not to the 2.3.2 latest version then at least to 2.2.16 if you want to stay with the 2.2 branch.

Do you have the global_duplicate_uri_check System Setting on? It's off by default.

It's rare, but a person could *want* duplicate pagetitles (which gives duplicate URIs). I was just looking at a site where there are dozens of duplicates. There are up to 20 resources with the same pagetitle -- all in the same context. They don't cause trouble because FURLs are off.

Quote from: BobRay at Dec 22, 2014, 11:43 PM

Do you have the global_duplicate_uri_check System Setting on? It's off by default.

It's rare, but a person could *want* duplicate pagetitles (which gives duplicate URIs). I was just looking at a site where there are dozens of duplicates. There are up to 20 resources with the same pagetitle -- all in the same context. They don't cause trouble because FURLs are off.

Thank you for your response,
I have global_duplicate_uri_check System Setting off. But I don't understand why you asked because this setting when set checks duplicates in all contexts and when not set check duplicates in resource's context. My problem happens with resources in the same context.

I have furls on. I don't understand your message about titles. I have duplicate aliases.

Quote from: sottwell at Dec 22, 2014, 07:51 PM

To begin with, I think you should upgrade your site, if not to the 2.3.2 latest version then at least to 2.2.16 if you want to stay with the 2.2 branch.

Thank you for your response,

yes, you suggested me a good idea to upgrade MODX. But I was wondering if this a known bug or I'm just missing something.

Anyone else?

With Friendly URLs enabled, the alias is usually automatically created from the pagetitle.

Testing, it appears that you can create all the resources with the same alias you like - as long as they are unpublished. You can create one published resource with the same alias, then after that all subsequent attempts to save any resource, new or edited, with that same alias will cause an error.

And, indeed, using the alias in a URL will cause a not-found condition if the unpublished aliases were created first (as they had to be in order to be created with a duplicate alias at all). [ed. note: sottwell last edited this post 11 years, 9 months ago.]

I think this is a bug...at least I shall go and report it as such, unless you would like to report it yourself.

Ah! Interesting. Clear the cache and you get this in the console

Resource URI page.html already exists for resource id = 9; skipping duplicate resource URI for resource id = 5
Resource URI page.html already exists for resource id = 9; skipping duplicate resource URI for resource id = 6
Resource URI page.html already exists for resource id = 9; skipping duplicate resource URI for resource id = 7
Resource URI page.html already exists for resource id = 9; skipping duplicate resource URI for resource id = 8

And subsequently a URL with the alias will load the published page, in this case #9.