[OJS 3.3.0.8] Strange behaviour in reviewer search after user merge

Hello all,

Description of issue or problem I’m having:
We are experiencing a strange behaviour when searching for reviewers to assign to a submission. Users that have been merged are showing multiple records after search, despite only having a single registration.

Steps I took leading up to the issue:
After merging users (several over the past months!) we noticed yesterday (October 22nd) that the search results were showing multiple results for the same reviewer on the review assign/search modal window.

What I tried to resolve the issue:
We searched the database and noted that those multiple results are from users that have been merged.

Application Version - e.g., OJS 3.1.2:
OJS 3.3.0.8

Additional information, such as screenshots and error log messages if applicable:
Reviewer search modal window
image

User search confirming a single record
image

User moda window confirming it is the specific user
image

Hello everyone,

We would like to confirm if the search lists all task of reviewers within all hosted journals, if current user is an admin.
This would explain showing records of reviews for reviewers registered in other journals (journals B, C, D), recently added to our journal (journal A, for an illustrated example).

Hi @ramon,

Thanks for sharing all the details here. It sounds like this could be related to your other post on Review Reports. Are these two issues occurring for the same journals/installations?

I’ll have a look into the user merging behaviour and see what effect this might be having.

A few clarification questions:

In the example you describe, were reviewers for two different journals merged into a single user?

What behaviour do you see when searching for reviewers from an account with lower permissions, (e.g. a section editor on a single journal only)? Do you still see the reviewers listed multiple times?

Another place to check would be the browser’s network tab while searching for the reviewer you describe above. You’d be looking for a request that looked something like http://localhost/stable/ojs330/index.php/publicknowledge/api/v1/users/reviewers?contextId=1&reviewStage=3&searchPhrase=ReviewerName&count=30&offset=0&_=1635289046687 and see what the response returns. You could compare the difference between the two different reviewers returned and see what the differentiating factor might be.

Thanks.

Best,

Erik
PKP Team

Hello @ewhanson ,

Several reviewers have been merged, in a single and multiple journals, as we host 5 journals in our install and at least 3 share users and reviewers.

I would need to perform the tests you suggest and report as soon as we can, as I have admin powers.

I don’t think the issue is related to the reviewer report, but who knows?

I noticed that the reviewers listed multiple times are registered in multiple journals, and those who seem to have active reviews in other journals are listed to me.

Hi @ramon,

Thanks for providing the additional details. Were you able to check what the response was from the network tab in the browser when the reviewer search was run?

I’m also curious if the reviewers that are listed multiple times are associated with a single user ID or if a reviewer was created individually in each of the journals.

Regards,

Erik
PKP Team

Hi @ramon,

I’m not sure if you’ve resolved this issue or not, but I came across a similar-sounding bug that was recently fixed. Maybe it can help you as well.

Regards,

Erik
PKP Team

Hello Erik,

We’ll look into this and report as soon as possible. I’m just getting back from vacations and I’m quite slow to return to normal.