Publishing from code doesn't update references

Goran Solomonovic

Vote:

Hi there!

I have a fairly straght forward code that replaces all references to page A with reference to page B in an Episerver 11 solution. The code below is simplified.

First I loop through all references with reference to page A

_repository.GetReferencesToContent(new ContentReference(pageA_id), true)

Then I fetch the original page in correct language, create clone, alter and save.

var original = _repository.Get(new ContentReference(referencePage_id), new CultureInfo(referencePage_lang));
var clone = (ContentData)original.CreateWritableClone();
clone["RelatedPage"] = new PageReference(pageB_id);
_repository.Save((IContent)clone, SaveAction.Publish, AccessLevel.NoAccess);

All of this works. Referenced page is published and now has reference to page B. However, if I try to delete page A or run GetReferencesToContent again I will still get that Refrences page has a reference to page A. If I in Edit mode alter the referenced page and publish, the reference will finally update correctly and reference to page A is finally gone.

Am I missing something in my code that updates the references? I thought this was done by Episerver automatically when I do a Publish from code!?

#196844

Edited, Sep 13, 2018 9:46

Darren Sunderland

Vote:

I encountered a similar issue to this which, for me, turned out to be down to the save action. In addition to publish, I needed additional actions to force the new page.

clone["RelatedPage"] = new PageReference(pageB_id);
var saveAction = SaveAction.CheckIn | SaveAction.Publish | SaveAction.ForceNewVersion;
_repository.Save((IContent)clone, saveAction, AccessLevel.NoAccess);

#196896

Sep 14, 2018 15:21

Goran Solomonovic

Vote:

I'm afraid that didn't work Darren.

References are still there. When I try to delete the old page it still shows references in other pages that I know don't have reference to old page. When I manually publish these in Edit mode the reference is removed.

#196988

Sep 19, 2018 9:36

Goran Solomonovic

Vote:

I'm afraid that didn't work Darren.

#196989

Sep 19, 2018 9:36

Vote:

I would think it's correct that old versions linking to a page would still be kept as references to content. But if it works when you publish manually I guess it's not.

Could also have something to do with other language versions of the content.

Maybe you need to touch the mark as changed property?

clone["PageChangedOnPublish"] = true;

#196996

Sep 19, 2018 11:25

Goran Solomonovic

Vote:

I'm afraid that didn't work either. References are still there. I'm actually already editing pages in the language that contains the reference so I believe I got that part correct at least.

#197000

Sep 19, 2018 12:12

Vote:

There might be some clues in this thread: https://world.episerver.com/forum/developer-forum/-Episerver-75-CMS/Thread-Container/2014/11/how-to-clean-up-inactive-softlinks-from-database/

#197004

Sep 19, 2018 12:41

Goran Solomonovic

Vote:

Yes, that did it for me Johan. I created a method that updates all the softlinks and it worked. However, ContentSoftLinkIndexer is unsupported internal API. So use it carefully and at your own risk. It might change without notice. So do test it after Episerver upgrade.

public void UpdateSoftLinks(List<ReferenceInformation> referenceList)
{
	foreach (var reference in referenceList)
	{
		var content = _repository.Get<IContent>(reference.OwnerID, reference.OwnerLanguage);
		var links = _contentSoftLinkIndexer.GetLinks(content);
		_contentSoftLinkRepository.Save(content.ContentLink.ToReferenceWithoutVersion(), content is ILocalizable ? reference.OwnerLanguage : null, links, false);
	}
}

#197020

Edited, Sep 19, 2018 14:47

Alex Corbeanu

Vote:

For me this was not working but i managed to manually change the reference to the new page by adding the following code:

foreach (SoftLink link in links)
            {
                if (link.ReferencedContentLink == oldPage.ContentLink)
                    link.ReferencedContentLink = newPage.ContentLink;
            }

Thank you guys.

#197022

Sep 19, 2018 15:05

Goran Solomonovic

Vote:

What you want is to trigger softlink save, not replace it manually. If pages are still showing among references you might also have missed replacing some of the old page references.

#197025

Sep 19, 2018 15:20

Alex Corbeanu

Vote:

In the meantime I made it work as it should. Now the softlink save is triggered. The manual update was a backup solution.

#197056

Sep 20, 2018 11:37