Readthedocs.org: Changing a tag to a branch leads to original and `_b` versions

[brettcannon]

Details

• Project URL: http://gidgethub.readthedocs.io
• Build URL (if applicable): N/A
• Read the Docs username (if applicable): brettcannon

Expected Result

RTD to notice I changed a tag to a branch and then drop the old branch (in this case, stable).

Actual Result

I now have a stable version for the now-deleted tag and a stable_b label for the branch. This breaks bookmarks for folks since I default to this branch (and I deleted the tag because RTD kept failing to build, maybe because of #3513 ?).

[brettcannon]

FYI I have temporarily turned off which version gidgethub.rtfd.io points to until/if this can be resolved (just in case people trying to diagnose what happened wonder why the site changed).

[stsewd]

@brettcannon hi, I think this is because rtd does a git fetch before each build, so it can't know if a tag was removed. Did you try wiping the environment? Yo can do this under the versions option (edit button).

[brettcannon]

Yep, I tried and it doesn't solve it: https://readthedocs.org/projects/gidgethub/builds/6959477/

[stsewd]

@brettcannon I can't see the build. Also, you need to rebuild for it takes effect.

[brettcannon]

I did and that's the link to the build failure.

[stsewd]

@brettcannon I can't see the build, I think is because you change the privacy level of the version, maybe?

[stsewd]

The latest build I see is from 4 days ago

Can you try wiping and rebuilding the latest version?

[brettcannon]

All the rest of the builds are private since I don't want users stumbling on to outdated docs. Rebuilding the latest version (which is tied to master) built find, but I still have a stable version which won't build and a stable_d version which is tied to the actual stable branch.

[stsewd]

@brettcannon can you try deactivating that version (no changing the privacy)? Then wipe and rebuild all your versions.

[brettcannon]

I've tried various approaches to deactivation and such and that doesn't seem to quite fix it.

[stsewd]

@brettcannon please see https://github.com/rtfd/readthedocs.org/issues/3887#issuecomment-377848380 for more information

[brettcannon]

@stsewd thanks for the info. I can just live with being off the master (good motivation to make releases more frequently 😉 ).

[humitos]

@stsewd could you add a test case for this issue in #3913 also?

Besides the issue that you are reporting here, I think it's very bad UX to show things like develop (tag) and develop_b (branch). I understand that this is because the slug can't be repeated, but we should show to the user something nicer like develop (tag) and develop (branch) or similar.

[stsewd]

Not sure if I understand the steps here, @brettcannon did you create a tag named stable and then a branch named stable?

[brettcannon]

@stsewd yep; I had a label named stable that I was forcibly pinning to the release point in master. Eventually RTD stopped liking me updating that label, so I switched to a branch named stable instead and that's when this issue arose.

[stsewd]

@brettcannon thanks for the clarification, that is the actual bug that #3913 is going to fix. When you create a custom stable tag/branch, rtd doesn't update the stable version automatically (even removing that tag/branch), the current solution is to recreate the project. Hope to fix this before you need to take such action.

[brettcannon]

@stsewd thanks for the info! I've just started pointing people at latest/master as the project is very stable at this point, so there's no major issue on my end to force a complete project recreation.

[stsewd]

https://github.com/rtfd/readthedocs.org/pull/3913/ was merged and released, this should be fixed by re-building another version that isn't stable (that way the versions are refreshed). Let me know if you still have this problem to reopen the issue.