SID-01814: UnknownUser Shown As Attachment Creator

Status:	Unanswered	TWiki version:	5.1.4	Perl version:	5.10.1
Category:	CategoryMissingFunctionality	Server OS:	RHEL 6.1	Last update:	10 years ago

I have a TWiki running 4.1.2 that's working perfectly. I created a new 5.1.4 site and copied over a TWiki web from the old server to the new server. Most things work fine.

One problem I'm having, however, is that all attachments show "UnknownUser' as the user who added them on the new server. Things are correct on the old server. I checked and the attachments themselves are identical on both servers. The topic history shows up correctly on both servers so it's only the attachment information that's wrong. Also, if I create a new page on the new server and attach something to it, my name shows up correctly as the person who added the attachment.

The documentation says when UnknowUser shows up "it is probably because author information for a topic could not be recovered". Where is this information stored? Any other suggestions?

Thanks, Jon Forrest

-- Jon Forrest - 2013-11-01

Discussion and Answer

Not sure. Append a ?raw=debug to the view URL of of an old topic and a new topic with attachments and compare.

-- Peter Thoeny - 2013-11-04

I did what you suggested. The diagnostic line that starts with "%META:FILEATTACHMENT" is exactly the same on the good page and the bad page!

I'm going to have to try to understand the code that produces the value for the "Who" field. Where's a good place to start?

-- Jon Forrest - 2013-11-04

Look into TWiki::Store, TWiki::Store::RcsFile and TWiki::Store::RcsWrap.

-- Peter Thoeny - 2013-11-04

I've been looking at this problem some more. Looking at the code hasn't been enlightening because it requires too much knowledge of TWiki internals. I even compared the working modules you mentioned in the working and non-working servers but, again, the code isn't easy to understand without significant background.

On the other hand, I've looked at both the page that includes the attachments, and the attachments on both the server where the username is showed correctly and the server where it appears as 'UnknownUser'. These files are identical, as shown by their md5sums. They're also owned by the same user and have the same file permissions. This is also true for their ,v files.

One thing I should mention is that I'm using LDAP authentication, but I'm using it on both the working and the non-working system so that alone isn't the cause of the problem. The fact that if I create a new attachment, its owner shows up correctly on the server where the owner shows up wrong for all existing attachments shows that it's not a fundamental authentication problem.

I'm starting to suspect a bug in the 5.1.4 code. I'd be glad to get any more suggestions.

-- Jon Forrest - 2013-11-06

Closing this question after more than 30 days of inactivity. Feel free to reopen if needed. Consider engaging one of the TWiki consultants if you need timely help. We invite you to get involved with the community, it is more likely you get community support if you support the open source project!

-- Peter Thoeny - 2015-12-03

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