Duplicating resources does not populate relation inputs

[samturrell]

Bug report

Required System information

• Node.js version: v14.19.3
• NPM version: 6.14.17
• Strapi version: 4.5.3
• Database: mysql
• Operating system: macOS

Describe the bug

When duplicating a page, relation inputs aren't populated.

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Create a resource with a linked relation
2. Go to the collection listing page
3. Click to duplicate an item
4. Observe that the relations are not pulled through

See the recording below:

https://www.loom.com/share/816a4bb8b0db4d3a8c242c6ac5e07969

Expected behavior

Relations should be pulled through from the resource being duplicated.

Screenshots

https://www.loom.com/share/816a4bb8b0db4d3a8c242c6ac5e07969

Code snippets

N/A

Additional context

N/A

[petersg83]

Indeed there is a regression here.

The way it was working before was that : when clicking on the duplicate button it was only opening the edit view with the form pre-filled (including relations). As we don’t load all relations anymore in the front because of performance issues, we need to rethink the duplicate feature and the user’s path to achieve a full duplicate.
Loading all the relations to fix this issue would just re-create the performance issues (not able to save when there are more than 1000 relations of instance etc.), so it would not be the way to go.

[joshuaellis]

@petersg83 i've wondered this for a while actually, how come we clone browser side? And not server-side? If we were to do it server-side, this would probably remove this issue?

[petersg83]

There are several reasons :

• so the user can edit it before
• because the duplicate action can be destructive on relations, like a x-to-one relation. It would remove the relation from the original entry. So it's best if the user can edit it before saving, it becomes their responsibility.

Side note :

• I wonder what happens with i18n

[gu-stav]

We have discussed this issue today and will work on fixing this, but it will take a bit longer because the current way of cloning is broken with the refactoring of relations. We agreed that we need to explore how we will handle cloning in the future and keep you posted.

[JulienHe]

I don't know if that's related, but when you Fill in from another locale the issue is similar, even worst the relations from the original page are going away.

[gu-stav]

Hello 👋🏼 We have discussed this issue recently because there is no easy solution to it at the moment. We have simply forgotten about this case when we started the refactoring work on relations.

Right now the frontend doesn't know longer about the relations that might exist in the cloned entity (which is a necessary performance optimization). This means we would have address cloning differently and may have to move it to the backend (to be decided).

I don't know if that's related, but when you Fill in from another locale the issue is similar, even worst the relations from the original page are going away.

This is a different issue, @JulienHe. Relational fields are always localized and there is no way currently to inherit relations from a different locale, so this is by design. You can e.g. subscribe + upvote this feature request: https://feedback.strapi.io/feature-requests/p/keep-relations-when-switching-between-locales