Adminhtml observers being called during app:config:import

[kassner]

Preconditions

1. Magento 2.2.7;
2. composer require kassner/module-test-admin-observer:dev-master (source code)
3. php bin/magento module:enable Kassner_TestAdminObserver

Steps to reproduce

1. Manually edit the app/etc/config.php file adding a configuration (i.e.: https://gist.github.com/kassner/d1368133ec09541a7a0927cd3964c3e0)
2. Run php bin/magento app:config:import

Expected result

The observer declared in the module is not executed:

www-data@ec46ba01ae51:~/magento$ php bin/magento app:config:import
Processing configurations data from configuration file...
System config was processed
www-data@ec46ba01ae51:~/magento$ 

Actual result

The observer declared in the module is executed:

www-data@ec46ba01ae51:~/magento$ php bin/magento app:config:import
Processing configurations data from configuration file...
string(64) "Kassner\TestAdminObserver\Observer\ModelSaveBeforeAdmin::execute"
System config was processed
string(64) "Kassner\TestAdminObserver\Observer\ModelSaveBeforeAdmin::execute"
www-data@ec46ba01ae51:~/magento$ 

Description

I did some extensive debugging and found out that during the config import, some methods are invoked using the emulateAreaCode for the adminhtml area. This is fine, but some classes, like Magento\Framework\Event\Config are populated with information related to the adminhtml area, but are never cleaned up or reinstantiated (given the way Magento dependency resolution works), making the next calls outside the emulation to use a dirty configuration, thus calling observers that were just declared for the adminhtml area.

I don't know a good solution for it right now, hence I come here to discuss this. Should we not have this emulation step at all during the app:config:import, or should we make sure that everything the emulateAreaCode steps touch are properly cleaned after?

I have a very cheap patch that I created to test this problem in other environments, and I would love some feedback from anyone that is currently running into those kind of issue.

Extra

This is also related to random failures during setup:upgrade or app:config:import with the message Import failed: Area code not set: Area code must be set before starting a session. for Magento Commerce installations. This is related to the model_save_before observer from Magento_AdminGws kicking in and a dependency of this observer uses the backend session.

Thank you!

[magento-engcom-team]

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@kassner do you confirm that you was able to reproduce the issue on vanilla Magento instance following steps to reproduce?

• yes
• no

[magento-engcom-team]

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[milindsingh]

@kassner Can you confirm that your Magento version in Magento Open Source 2.2.7?

[kassner]

@milindsingh it happens in open source, I tested it isolated using composer create-project.

The difference is that app:config:import will not fail on the Open Source one, given there is no AdminGws, but the adminhtml observers are still called, so the project custom code or even future changes to Magento Open Source can trigger this to error as well in the future. I created this extra module to show them being called, so should be straight forward to test it.

[kassner]

I renamed the ticket since the error only happens on Commerce. The new one should reflect the problem in the Open source version.

[magento-engcom-team]

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Hi @kassner this observer called by Magento/Config/Model/Config/Importer.php
SaveFlag method which have method save-> and parent::beforesave

[kassner]

I know. But this observer is declared in the adminhtml area, which should only run when you are accessing the backend. Also, if you comment out the emulation in the previous lines, the observer is not called anymore. For me, this indicates that the configuration is leaking from the emulation.