Need to reload my DSpace for fresh workflow tasks to show up

[pnbecker]

Describe the bug

Different users reported that if they create a new submission or change the state of a workflow task, the resulting workflow task does no show up on "my dspace" until they reload the page.

To Reproduce

I was not able to reproduce it myself, but from what I here:

1. create a collection and activate workflow steps in it
2. put yourself in the workflow group
3. create a new item and submit it into that collection. You will be forwarded to my dspace
4. directly select the state to show workflow tasks
5. look out for the just created item
6. reload the page in your browser and look out for the workflow task again

I also hear that this happens when you have more than one workflow step active for a collection and forward a workflow task from one step to the next one.

Expected behavior

When you leave submission or forward a worklow item to the next step, it should show up immediately without needing to reload my DSpace (if you are allowed to move on with the next workflow step).

Does anyone can confrim this issue?

[tdonohue]

Flagging as needs discussion until bug can be verified.

[MW3000]

Yes, our repository managers have reported the same issue on DSpace 8. They report, that the list of items in Workflow Tasks does need browser reload to display recently changed items. I could reproduce this behaviour.

[kshepherd]

FWIW, since I lowered the auto soft commit solr.autoCommit.maxTime to 800ms, I have been unable to reproduce the problem in my local dev or hosted test servers... so my thought is that it could just be some slow index events meaning search results for the new workflow tasks aren't available quickly enough for a fast user in My DSpace.

I picked 800ms as a value that should beat most "click over to workflow tasks page" activity, without going too far and creating too much load. Soft autoCommit only makes the changes in memory as opposed to regular autoCommit doing it on disk so it is intended as a lower-cost way of making things visible but not persistent (until the regular commit occurs a few seconds later).

In docker stacks/swarms, this option can be set in SOLR_OPTS environment variable.

[tdonohue]

I've moved this to the maintenance board because the bug has been verified by others. Needs a volunteer.

[alanorth]

A submitter just showed me this issue on our 7.6 instance yesterday.

[alexandrevryghem]

Tuesday I also encountered a caching issue in the search results section, when search results are invalidated and re-requested, the returned value can sometimes be a SuccessStale response. I don't know if this will fix this specific issue, but if someone wants to test that, here is the fix (it's compatible with dspace-7.6). I'm planning on creating a PR for it in the next weeks