Unlink bug scare - explanation

1/2/2023

2 minutes

Just shortly before the Winter break, there was a scary looking bug that was announced even via Cloud broadcast. It turned out much less harmful than it initially seemed. Here is the whole story.

The story

In version 12.4.0 (early December), we introduced a feature Primary account (for related accounts in tasks). Details in release notes.

On 19th December, we realized some data had mysteriously disappeared in our internal application (thanks to our regular backups, restoration was not a problem). After primary analysis, it was found that clicking on the button "Unlink" caused the unlinked entity to be deleted. We decided to publish this finding immediately to avoid data loss to our Clients.

On 20th December, version 12.4.2 was released which contained a fix. It was distributed to Cloud applications as well as made available in Client zone (Server solution). Post mortem analysis continued.

Findings in the last week of December caused relief. The issue missed the heavily used relations, including tasks. It occured only in very specific relations in B2B CRM:

Price book → price book bundles
Contract → opportunities
Personal contact → primary support contracts
Personal contact → implementation contracts

A permanent fix was still not yet delivered. If you are using B2B CRM, please avoid clicking unlink button on these relations.

All other relations are safe and unlinking them is also safe.

Postmortem

Specific test cases were added for public releases. Code guidelines were updated. Standards for the primary analysis of such incidents was improved. The communication strategy of such indicents "better safe than sorry" remains, we will just improve our prevention of panic situations.

We apologize to everyone concerned by this bug and the way of communication that may have caused additional stress to that already stressful time of the year.

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