[Koha-devel] link_bibs_to_authorities.pl can corrupt records

Fri Jan 6 21:57:15 CET 2012

I have successfully use that script to link authorities to biblio records
after doing a migration. But the way it works is to remove all links and
recreate.

Course I didn't do this on a server people were using, which it sounds like
you are, to have lost 100 biblios.

Its included for that use case. Jared is working on a much better linking
script and he gave you the information how to change it.

Its not a total screwup script, and it didn't demolish the whole db, I
think you would find people more willing to help you, in their own free
time, in their weekends if you didn't come across so aggressive and
accusatory in your tone.

Chris
On 7 Jan 2012 09:48, "Archives and Collections Society" <info at aandc.org>
wrote:

>  At 03:02 PM 1/6/2012 -0500, Ian Walls wrote:
>
> Paul,
> The link_bibs_to_authorities.pl script is hardcoded to ALWAYS erase
> manual links.Â  I'm not sure what the reasoning is behind that.Â  But,
> every time you run it, any link you've done manually that the script can't
> automatically figure out will be removed.Â  Nature of the beast (for now,
> at least).
>
>
> What is "any link you've done manually"?, please.  More than 90% of our
> input is Z39.50 and "default" item cataloguing.
>
> OK - a total screw-up that is included without any warning whatsoever in
> the standard distribution of 3.6.1 ???  From the bug report <
> http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=5683>
>
> Chris Cormack 2011-06-01 21:13:23 UTC
> Pushed to master
>
> Jared Camins-Esakov 2011-07-08 14:37:02 UTC
> Seems to be working now. Closing.
>
> If it's "nature of the beast" why isn't the "beast" mentioned somewhere?
> What on earth is the reason for this .pl to be included in any distribution?
>
> More...
>
> 2012/1/6 Chris Cormack <chris at bigballofwax.co.nz>
>  Im assuming you did this on your testing/staging server right?
> Id restore that from backup, then try applying the patch and see if you
> get better behaviour.
> If so, then do it on your production machine.
>
>
> what "patch"???
>
> And yes -- I can restore from a previous sqldump, and only lose +/- 100
> biblios.   We're in pre-production and when we got the zebra indexing
> working properly, I told our volunteers to start inputting to 3.6.1 *only*
> (not duplicate on 3.2) so that I could look into any difficulties they
> experienced as cataloguers.
>
> I had no way at all of knowing that a pl script included in the "latest
> stable distribution" could possibly demolish the whole db.
>
> Again, what "patch" and where do I find it?
>
> Might I suggest that someone re-opens the bug (I have attempted to
> annotate it) and removes this dangerous script from public distribution (or
> at least includes a very visible warning.)
>
> Best - Paul
>
>
>  Chris
> On 7 Jan 2012 08:47, "Paul" <paul.a at aandc.org> wrote:
> Bug 5683 (link_bibs_to_authorities.pl can corrupt records) was signed off
> some months ago, but is perhaps a little too cryptic for me to follow in
> detail. Â Can someone help? As far as I can see, without remedial action,
> this is catastrophic.
>
> Following difficulties we have had migrating 3.2 to 3.6.1, someone on the
> users mailing list suggested we should run link_bibs_to_authorities.pl --
> (db has ~10k authorities and ~15k biblios) -- so I did just that, and have
> APPARENTLY DEMOLISHED *EVERY* LINK IN THE DB. Â From my notes:
>
> paul at nelson:/usr/share/koha$ ./bin/link_bibs_to_authorities.pl
>
> Bib authority heading linking report
> ------------------------------------
> Number of bibs checked: Â  Â  Â  14911
> Number of bibs modified: Â  Â  Â 14886
> Number of bibs with errors: Â  0
>
> but - the staff interface no longer correctly finds authorities !!!
>
> [1] Manually link (staff client) auth "Lubbock" to bib "Arctic Whalers" --
> now linked, 35 other Lubbock bibs not linked. Â Is this a question of zebra
> re-indexing?
>
> So: Â KOHA_CONF=/etc/koha/koha-conf.xml PERL5LIB=/usr/share/koha/lib
> ./bin/migration_tools/rebuild_zebra.pl -a -r -v
> and Â KOHA_CONF=/etc/koha/koha-conf.xml PERL5LIB=/usr/share/koha/lib
> ./bin/migration_tools/rebuild_zebra.pl -b -r -v -x
>
> koha at nelson:/usr/share/koha$ ./bin/link_bibs_to_authorities.pl
> ... processed 100 records
> / ... /
> ... processed 14900 records
>
> Bib authority heading linking report
> ------------------------------------
> Number of bibs checked: Â  Â  Â  14911
> Number of bibs modified: Â  Â  Â 1
> Number of bibs with errors: Â  0
> koha at nelson:/usr/share/koha$
>
> All this did was to *un-link" the bib/auth link that I had manually
> entered at [1] above. Could someone involved with signing off bug 5683
> please explain why link==unlink?
>
> Help - please.
>
> Paul
>
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>
> --
> Ian Walls
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