[Bug]: Tipline stops getting updated intermittently

[areeba-dau]

Describe the bug

While we are logged into the dashboard, we keep refreshing the page to ensure that the latest media recieved is visible to us. However, sometimes despite multiple refresh-es, no new media files show up on the dashboard. If we logout and login again then we are able to see that we have recieved new media files on the dashboard. This doesn't happen throughout the day. Most of the times we don't even have to refresh to see the new media files, it gets automatically updated. But onece or twice a day, media files that, for example, Debraj says he is looking at might not be visible to Pamposh unless she logs in again. We encountered this issue once last week but didn't realise it could be a bug until it happened again this week on 23rd and 24th April.

Unfortunately, I don't have relevant screenshots for this issue.

Steps to reproduce

1. Go to dashboard
2. Check media ID to see which files have been recieved most recently
3. Check with other members if they can see the same media files or if there are more recent fiarles visible on their dashboard that are not visible on your dashboard

Note that this is an intermittent issue and you may/may not be able to recreate it at will.

Expected behavior

The dashboard should be getting updated automatically at all times.

Screenshots

No response

What browsers are you seeing the problem on?

Chrome

Which operating system are you on?

None

System Description

No response

[dennyabrain]

@areeba-dau I have a theory. The items you see on the query page is decided by the URL which may look like https://dau.tattle.co.in/demo/query?page_num=1&sort=newest&verification_status=&media_type=all. As you can see, this url is a mixture of a path /demo/query and some filtering parameters like sort order, verification status etc.

now when you first login to the portal the url you go to is https://dau.tattle.co.in/demo/query at this point no filtering parameters are applied, so by default you see all posts. But if you apply any filter the URL will change to reflect that filter. So if you click on "deepfake" on the left side panel to see only items with deepfake category, the URL will change to https://dau.tattle.co.in/demo/query?verification_status=deepfake&taken_up_by=&to=2024-04-25&from=2024-03-01&media_type=all&sort=newest&page_num=1
here you can see that along with the deepfake filter, we've added the default values for all other filter parameters. I can see that some mistake in this logic might be causing this bug that you have encountered. Especially since we have a known bug related to date filtering.

when you say that you see old data even after refreshing the page but when you login and logout the new data is visible, I think that what might be happening is that when you refresh the page, your filter parameters are in some state where its filtering out the newest posts. So we will investigate that.

One thing you all could do to verify for me if my theory is right is that whenever you notice this the next time, copy your current URL and paste it here so we can investigate. Then try hitting the clear filter icon on the top left to see if you see the newest posts. And alternatively try to change you url from whatever it is to https://dau.tattle.co.in/demo/query

[areeba-dau]

Noted.

I have communicated to Pamposh and Debraj to copy the URL and share it, as and when they encounter this issue again. If this happens, they will also use the 'clear filters' option after copying the dashboard URL. However, just thinking out loud, shouldn't all filters get reset to default when we refresh the dashboard?

[dennyabrain]

So the problem is that when you press the Refresh button on the browser, all it does is make a request to our server with the SAME url thats already in the url bar. And so if the cause of this bug is some parameter value within the URL, this wont fix our issue. Often some apps have a refresh button WITHIN the app that lets you define some custom behaviour. So in that case hitting that refresh button would reset all filters to the default button. In a way the "clear filter" button is kind of doing that.

So I think if we are able to recreate this issue and validate my hunch that this is indeed why the issue is happening, the fix would be easy. I will also try to see if we can resolve this in a way that doesn't involve any behavioural changes on your end.

Unless a user has applied a combination of filters, hitting refresh to see latest post is an expected behaviour and we can ensure that works.