openedx / openedx/openedx-platform

Bug: course_home/v1/navigation 500s until the CMS worker rewrites the learning_sequences outline

Open
#39,116 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

bug help wanted
Dominant language
Python
Stars
8.2k
Forks
4.4k
Avg merge
6d 18h
Merged PRs (30d)
42

Description

GET /api/course_home/v1/navigation/<course key> answers HTTP 500 with the LMS
error page for a window after a publish. The log shows
LearningContext.DoesNotExist then
CourseOutlineData.DoesNotExist: No CourseOutlineData for <course key>.

The learning_sequences outline the view depends on is written by the CMS
worker on the publish signal. On the measured run that task landed 33 s after
the publish, because the same queue was carrying thousands of per-block
content.search.tasks.upsert_xblock_index_doc tasks, each taking around 21 s.
Until it lands the learner's course home cannot be built at all, while the
neighbouring course_home/v1/outline view and the Blocks API both answer 200
for the same state.

Expected: treat a missing CourseOutlineData the way the outline view does,
falling back to the unfiltered blocks or answering an empty model, rather than a
500.

Environment: Tutor main, 2026-09-11, with ENABLE_COURSEWARE_INDEX = True
and Meilisearch-backed Studio content search on.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start at the course_home/v1/navigation view and compare its handling of missing CourseOutlineData with the neighboring course_home/v1/outline view. Reproduce the post-publish state where the CMS worker has not written the learning_sequences outline; done means navigation no longer returns HTTP 500 and follows the described fallback or empty-model behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
api, backend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
68/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.