Steps to reproduce the issue
- Install any package which is compatible with Joomla 4.0 RC2 and has a system plugin.
- Go to System, Update, Joomla.
- Click on Check for Updates
- Check the “No Update Required” section.
Expected result
Everything listed in the “No Update Required” section shows as having no problem whatsoever. These are the extension versions confirmed to be compatible with the version of Joomla I am about to install. These green items are good to go, the extension developers did their due diligence and I am a star for having updated them already. Hooray!
The other extensions show me a message about them having plugins which might be incompatible and cause my site to stop functioning after executing a Joomla update. Okay, I guess. These are old extensions which haven't received an update for a while. I'll miss them but I'll live. Let me disable or uninstall them before I start updating Joomla.
This is really neat! Joomla 4 is already supported by so many third party extensions. This thing will freaking ROCK! Woo-hoo!
Actual result
All extensions which contain a system plugin show with a very scary and confusing ‘Potentially Serious Problem. More Information.’ message. This tells me all these extensions do have a problem that Joomla detected and it might be a serious one. My, oh, my.
When I click on more information my worst fears are confirmed:
This extension includes a plugin that could cause the upgrade to fail.
To perform the Joomla upgrade safely you should either upgrade this extension to a version compatible with your target version of Joomla or disable the relevant plugin(s) and check again.
For more information about the relevant plugins please check the 'Live Update' tab.”
I understand that all extensions, even those which are supposedly "up to date", are incompatible with Joomla 4 and I'd need to remove them or disable them. But... if I do that, I am left without any extensions! How is my site even supposed to work?! It looks like this newfangled Joomla 4 thing is unsupported by most Joomla developers. Joomla must be dead; components which have been around for more than a decade seem to not support it. Yet, Joomla 3 is an ancient piece of crap. I guess I'll stick with Joomla 3 for a while before moving my site to WordPress. Clearly, Joomla 4 is dead as a dodo. This pre-installation check confirms it. I guess the writing was on the wall...
System information (as much as possible)
Completely irrelevant.
Additional comments
The current message reads “Potentially serious problem”. There are two adverbs and a noun which creates a lot of ambiguity as to the meaning of the message. Does the adverb “potentially” apply to the adverb “serious” or the noun “problem”? I have asked native English speakers and their first guess was that it applies to the noun. Therefore the message ends up reading as “this extension most definitely has a problem and it can be a mighty serious one, ALERT ALERT ALERT, AWUUUGAAAA”.
Of course this confuses the user who will now be untrusting towards our software. When us 3PDs explain the lack of a problem to users they will lose trust in Joomla itself and start blindly ignoring its warnings. Therefore this message is not just a waste of time but it also conditions users into ignoring messages about real issues which has a net negative impact to their experience using Joomla.
Further to that, the recommended course of action of disabling all these plugins is detrimental to the site's operation and WILL cause the site to fail. System plugins implement very important functionality on the site, from security to integration with payment providers and everything in between. Disabling them will break the frontend and could even have detrimental consequences e.g. e-commerce sites left unable to process orders. Considering that the list of plugins with “potentially serious problems“ is never to be shown again once you disable the plugins and/or update Joomla, the user is caught off-guard and left with a broken site. In other words, if you follow Joomla's advice your site is broken and you're left in the lurch, trying to figure it out all by yourself. Ouch!!! A bad experiences like this is what drives people away from Joomla.
I do understand why this message exists and I have read on its history. I agree on the concept but I disagree on the misleading implementation.
For the extensions in the “No update required” category the message should be a much less scary, informative one e.g. “Extension containing plugins” with an info icon instead of an exclamation icon and with a further information tooltip content similar to “This extension includes plugins which load on all pages. The extension is reported as compatible with the version of Joomla you are about to install and should not cause any problems. In the unlikely event it's not, these plugins may prevent your site from loading at all. You are advised to take a backup copy of your site before proceeding with the Joomla update.”.
Moreover, the plugins from these extensions should either NOT be shown in the Live Update tab or shown separately (e.g. under a “Always loading plugins”, explained to be plugins from extensions which claim to be compatible with the new Joomla version to be installed) and their existence NOT block the Joomla core update.
As for all of the other extensions, the language strings need to change to be far less ambiguous and their information needs to be clear and actionable.
The short message should read ‘Potential error’. Instead of the inherent ambiguity of using two adverbs we now have a single adverb and a single noun. The noun “error” in the context of computer programs denotes a very serious problem which will cause a, let's say, unplanned termination of the program.
Further to that, this should be what you can click for more information instead of a separate “Further information” link. The “Further information” link seems to applied to the extension, not the message about a potential error.
Moreover, it's enough to show this ONCE per extension. Showing it as many times as there are plugins is an overkill and does not add to clarity. Quite the contrary.
Finally, the further information tooltip as it stands is an exercise in bureaucratese. It's unclear, it's not actionable, it instills uncertainty. Something more clear is in order, e.g. “This extension includes plugins which load on all pages. This extension can not be confirmed as compatible with the Joomla version you are about to install. If the extension is indeed incompatible these plugins may prevent your site from loading at all after updating Joomla. You can find a list of these plugins in the Live Update tab. You may need to disable these plugins before running the update. If you choose to do so please make sure to keep a copy of the list of plugins in the Live Update tab somewhere safe before disabling any plugin. Remember that this list will NOT be shown to you again after you update Joomla. You will need it if you decide to re-enable these plugins after updating Joomla and upgrading the respective extensions they belong to.”
It's clear and concise, with actionable items instead of letting the user guess. We all know what happens when the less experienced users are left to guess too much...
Why did I not report this before
As you remember, this feature was completely borked, up to and including 4.0 RC1. I reported that issue, I got it fixed and I finally got to the point where I could test the pre-update checks for real.
Steps to reproduce the issue
Expected result
Everything listed in the “No Update Required” section shows as having no problem whatsoever. These are the extension versions confirmed to be compatible with the version of Joomla I am about to install. These green items are good to go, the extension developers did their due diligence and I am a star for having updated them already. Hooray!
The other extensions show me a message about them having plugins which might be incompatible and cause my site to stop functioning after executing a Joomla update. Okay, I guess. These are old extensions which haven't received an update for a while. I'll miss them but I'll live. Let me disable or uninstall them before I start updating Joomla.
This is really neat! Joomla 4 is already supported by so many third party extensions. This thing will freaking ROCK! Woo-hoo!
Actual result
All extensions which contain a system plugin show with a very scary and confusing ‘Potentially Serious Problem. More Information.’ message. This tells me all these extensions do have a problem that Joomla detected and it might be a serious one. My, oh, my.
When I click on more information my worst fears are confirmed:
I understand that all extensions, even those which are supposedly "up to date", are incompatible with Joomla 4 and I'd need to remove them or disable them. But... if I do that, I am left without any extensions! How is my site even supposed to work?! It looks like this newfangled Joomla 4 thing is unsupported by most Joomla developers. Joomla must be dead; components which have been around for more than a decade seem to not support it. Yet, Joomla 3 is an ancient piece of crap. I guess I'll stick with Joomla 3 for a while before moving my site to WordPress. Clearly, Joomla 4 is dead as a dodo. This pre-installation check confirms it. I guess the writing was on the wall...
System information (as much as possible)
Completely irrelevant.
Additional comments
The current message reads “Potentially serious problem”. There are two adverbs and a noun which creates a lot of ambiguity as to the meaning of the message. Does the adverb “potentially” apply to the adverb “serious” or the noun “problem”? I have asked native English speakers and their first guess was that it applies to the noun. Therefore the message ends up reading as “this extension most definitely has a problem and it can be a mighty serious one, ALERT ALERT ALERT, AWUUUGAAAA”.
Of course this confuses the user who will now be untrusting towards our software. When us 3PDs explain the lack of a problem to users they will lose trust in Joomla itself and start blindly ignoring its warnings. Therefore this message is not just a waste of time but it also conditions users into ignoring messages about real issues which has a net negative impact to their experience using Joomla.
Further to that, the recommended course of action of disabling all these plugins is detrimental to the site's operation and WILL cause the site to fail. System plugins implement very important functionality on the site, from security to integration with payment providers and everything in between. Disabling them will break the frontend and could even have detrimental consequences e.g. e-commerce sites left unable to process orders. Considering that the list of plugins with “potentially serious problems“ is never to be shown again once you disable the plugins and/or update Joomla, the user is caught off-guard and left with a broken site. In other words, if you follow Joomla's advice your site is broken and you're left in the lurch, trying to figure it out all by yourself. Ouch!!! A bad experiences like this is what drives people away from Joomla.
I do understand why this message exists and I have read on its history. I agree on the concept but I disagree on the misleading implementation.
For the extensions in the “No update required” category the message should be a much less scary, informative one e.g. “Extension containing plugins” with an info icon instead of an exclamation icon and with a further information tooltip content similar to “This extension includes plugins which load on all pages. The extension is reported as compatible with the version of Joomla you are about to install and should not cause any problems. In the unlikely event it's not, these plugins may prevent your site from loading at all. You are advised to take a backup copy of your site before proceeding with the Joomla update.”.
Moreover, the plugins from these extensions should either NOT be shown in the Live Update tab or shown separately (e.g. under a “Always loading plugins”, explained to be plugins from extensions which claim to be compatible with the new Joomla version to be installed) and their existence NOT block the Joomla core update.
As for all of the other extensions, the language strings need to change to be far less ambiguous and their information needs to be clear and actionable.
The short message should read ‘Potential error’. Instead of the inherent ambiguity of using two adverbs we now have a single adverb and a single noun. The noun “error” in the context of computer programs denotes a very serious problem which will cause a, let's say, unplanned termination of the program.
Further to that, this should be what you can click for more information instead of a separate “Further information” link. The “Further information” link seems to applied to the extension, not the message about a potential error.
Moreover, it's enough to show this ONCE per extension. Showing it as many times as there are plugins is an overkill and does not add to clarity. Quite the contrary.
Finally, the further information tooltip as it stands is an exercise in bureaucratese. It's unclear, it's not actionable, it instills uncertainty. Something more clear is in order, e.g. “This extension includes plugins which load on all pages. This extension can not be confirmed as compatible with the Joomla version you are about to install. If the extension is indeed incompatible these plugins may prevent your site from loading at all after updating Joomla. You can find a list of these plugins in the Live Update tab. You may need to disable these plugins before running the update. If you choose to do so please make sure to keep a copy of the list of plugins in the Live Update tab somewhere safe before disabling any plugin. Remember that this list will NOT be shown to you again after you update Joomla. You will need it if you decide to re-enable these plugins after updating Joomla and upgrading the respective extensions they belong to.”
It's clear and concise, with actionable items instead of letting the user guess. We all know what happens when the less experienced users are left to guess too much...
Why did I not report this before
As you remember, this feature was completely borked, up to and including 4.0 RC1. I reported that issue, I got it fixed and I finally got to the point where I could test the pre-update checks for real.