internetarchive / internetarchive/openlibrary

Most authors cannot be deleted because of dangling references on editions which cannot be changed

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#3,413 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Affects: Data Affects: Librarians Lead: @scottbarnes Module: Authors Module: Merging Priority: 2 Type: Bug
Dominant language
Python
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Description

Editions hold a copy of the author OLID, which falls out of sync with the work, and cannot be edited via the UI.

- The root cause of this is #2625

Related:
- #3343
- #5664
- #5594
- #8069

Maybe related:
- #1445
- #5664

### Steps to Reproduce

1. Go to https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL3099625A/Delete_duplicate
2. Press "Delete record"

* Actual: `This Author page cannot be deleted as 1 record(s) still reference this id. Please remove or reassign before trying again. Referenced by: ['/books/OL8796829M']`
* Expected: Delete succeeds

### Details

- **Logged in (Y/N)?** Y (admin)
- **Browser type/version?** FF75
- **Operating system?** Win10
- **Environment (prod/dev/local)?** prod

### Proposal & Constraints

### Related files

### Stakeholders
@seabelis

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reproducing the failure at the author deletion URL and review issue #2625 alongside the related issues #3343, #5664, #5594, and #8069. Trace how the dangling edition reference is detected and how edition author OLIDs are maintained. Done means the affected author can be deleted without leaving an invalid reference, with the existing reference-safety behavior preserved.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
backend, database
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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