Restricting a page breaks macros for other users

[Marek Wyroślak]

HI,

I have some issues with this topic and I can't resolve it. Recently I have restricted 1 page(view and edit) from everyone expect users in certain group. After the change users who are allowed to view and edit can't see the macros they have seen before(Children display, Task report). When I take the restriction down everything works, does anyone know how can I resolve this issue?

Best

[Diego]

Hello there, @Marek Wyroślak ! As I understand, macros become unavailable when page restrictions are applied to a specific page. Is that correct?

With the behavior described above in mind, I tried to replicate the issue. 

I was unable to replicate this on my Confluence instance. Now we can start and test some variable to try and detect the root of this behavior. 

Would it be possible for the affected users to try the following:

1. Access the page (while restrictions are applied) with another browser
2. Try to replicate the same with a newly created page
3. Access the page using the Browser incognito mode

I would like to understand a little bit more about your situation, Marek. Here is a short list of questions for you:

1. Is this affecting all users who have access to the page?
2. Is this affecting any other page as well?
3. Is there any error thrown on screen?
4. What exactly is presented to the users when the page is restricted?

Let us hear from you, Marek. Looking forward to your reply. 

[Marek Wyroślak]

Hello @Diego . Thank You for the answer.

Yes, macros become unavailable when the page becomes restricted. As for the questions:

1. The same happens when accessing the page from another browser. 

2. The same issue occurs when I create a new page and restrict it. 

3. The incognito mode also did not resolve the issue. 

I believe the issue is caused somehow when using group permissions. I will try to explain. 

I have a page called Meetings with 2 macros - children display and task report. Under this page, there are 2 more pages - Update Meetings and Other Meetings both of those pages use children display macro. Under those two pages, I add only Meeting Notes. 

As for the permissions I have restricted access to the page Meetings for everyone except users in Group A. 

Every user in Group A can access every page I have mentioned but they can't see anything where children display macro should be displayed and the Task Report macro in Meetings page displays this information: Looking good, no incomplete tasks. 

For the questions you have asked:

1. Yes, it does affect every user who has access to the page. I noticed I can somehow fix it(task report bug) by adding a user to the restrictions and set their permission to view and edit, so it looks like it does work when I add user manually but does not work when I add Group to the restrictions. 

2. Every other page that is not restricted works perfectly fine. 

3. There is no error on the screen.

4. For the Task Report, it only displays text: "Looking good, no incomplete tasks" - and in reality, there are a lot of incomplete tasks and the users can see them in each of the Meeting Notes pages. For the Children display macro is simply does not show anything - the page is blank for affected users. 

Hope this helps to resolve the issue. 

[Marek Wyroślak]

Hi @Diego . Do you have any updates on the issue?

Best,

Marek

[Diego]

Well, actually yes, @Marek Wyroślak!

I found out that the issue seems to be directly connected to this bug report:

• [CONFCLOUD-66969] Restricted pages do not display in macros

The current behaviour that your instance shows is pretty similar to what we have here. Also, I was able to replicate the issue on my own Cloud instance as well.

I would start by checking the group name. If the group name falls within the affected criteria (uppercase name), there are three workarounds:

1. Remove the affected group and add another group (without uppercase letters) to the restrictions list
2. Add users individually to the page restrictions
3. Remove page restrictions

Removing the page restrictions, removing the group or adding users individually are the options we are left with.

Personally, I believe that adding the users to another group, without uppercase letters, might be the easiest way out. After adding the users to this group, we could move forward and add the group to the page restrictions.

Meanwhile, we could go ahead to vote and watch the report linked above. Voting can help to increase issue visibility and watching keeps us up to date with everything there.

Let us hear from you, Marek. Hope this helps to clear things up a bit!

[Marek Wyroślak]

Thank you very much for the answer @Diego !

I have voted for the issue you have sent, it really looks like it is exactly the same. As for the workarounds:

1. The current group does have uppercase letters. I will create new one and see what the results are.

2. I have noticed this recently and I know this will help but adding every user individually to every page is really not the best solution :( 

3. I really can't do that, we must have some pages restricted from everyone, I know that this would resolve the issue I just can't do it.  

I will create a new group and let you know about the results. 

Best,

Marek Wyroślak

[Diego]

Great to hear from you, @Marek Wyroślak!

Let us hear about your findings.