Can't delete system messages

[pushcx]

When a Story is edited by user suggestions, the submitter gets a Message. That Message gets an author_user_id of 0 and appears in the inbox as being from System rather than a named user.

Since 12644b2 (and triggered by a user for the first time last month after >3y!) a bug prevents deleting these Messages, individually or batch-delete. When a recipient deletes a message it toggles the deleted_by_recipient boolean and saves, whereupon a callback (arrrgggggh) checks to see if the record should be deleted from the database. But instead an exception is thrown by .save! because the object is invalid without a real author_user_id.

This needs a fix so users can delete system messages. Maybe the right fix is to make author_user_id nullable and migrate to replace the 0s with NULLs? Or maybe MessagesController#destroy and #batch_delete should just directly delete records when possible and delete the check_for_both_deleted magic entirely?

[mrtorks]

Hi @pushcx
Interesting bug.

I do agree with using setting records with NULL instead of 0 and then check for a null condition with an override to delete the record.
Directly deleting the record through
MessagesController#destroy and #batch_delete is also a great idea however in my opinion, implementing that might introduce complexity.

If possible more details about the bug could help me develop a more concrete solution.

[pushcx]

What details would be useful to you? After I figured out what caused the exception I wrote this up to give as much context as possible, so I don't know what more would help or I would've already included it. :)

[mrtorks]

Pardon my dust @pushcx my thought process ran wild and it was late when I was responding. Using the null option definitely works. You could give that a try to see where it goes.

[vincentrolfs]

I'm on it :)

[vincentrolfs]

I created PR #1078