Potential Bug - Naming Folders After Deleted Views (Ignition 8.3.8)

[eperiard]

Hello,

I believe I may have stumbled across a major potential bug, and I was hoping I could get some help with reversing its effects (if possible).

The Skinny: I had a view in Perspective named "Trending" that acted as a placeholder during the beginning of development. Once I got around to it, I realized I would need multiple views to achieve the trending screen functionality we were after. So, I deleted the view named "Trending", and in the same exact spot, I created a new folder with the name (you guessed it): "Trending".

In this new "Trending" folder, I created 5 or 6 new views and got them all working together how I wanted. At this point, everything was working great. I saved everything in designer, made a quick gateway backup, and then packed away the workstation so I could demonstrate the HMI progress to the client the next day.

When I opened everything up the next day while getting ready to present, to my horror, I found that my entire "Trending" folder that I had created (as well as all the views within it) were gone. Not just that, but in place of my trending folder that I was working in just the night before was an empty/shell view titled "Trending"... Opening this view in the designer results in what is shown in Screenshot #2 below.

Needless to say, the trending screens did not work, and I was not able to demonstrate the screens that I had working perfectly fine the night before. You can see in Screenshot #1 that even the Designer got confused as to where my trending views went, as the "/trending" page was still configured to point at one of the views located within the Trending folder I had defined the night before.

The Theory: Somehow, at some point, the metadata or whatever backend magic that distinguishes folders from views got tripped up when I deleted the view named "Trending" and then created a new folder with the same exact name, and in the same exact spot. Perhaps the backend never truly "finalized" the deletion of that original Trending view until some point after I created the new folder with the same path and name, which then confused it into thinking that the Trending view was never actually deleted?

The Question: Has anyone seen/experienced this kind of bug before? And more importantly, is there any way I could get my Trending folder (with its child views) back into my project?

Side Note: I mentioned earlier that I took a gateway backup right before packing up for the demo. I took this backup while the trending screens were still working, so today I tried restoring from that backup to try to bring the views back. Unfortunately, it did not, and I am still stuck with this husk of a view in place of the folder that is supposed to be there.

I'm hoping there is some way to get those lost views back, because it took a significant amount of time and work to make them. Any help/advice would be much appreciated.

[tgarrison]

You should probably give support a call.

[eperiard]

Yeah that's probably wise. I just opened a support ticket, but I wanted to leave this post here as well in case anyone else comes across this issue and we are able to find a fix.

[eperiard]

I contacted support and confirmed that this is a known bug, and a formal bug ticket is currently in the works.

In the meantime, if anyone else runs into this issue, you can fix the bug and restore your broken folder's contents by following these steps (thank you @Lorens_Hadi!):

1. Backup your gateway (just in case).
2. In File Explorer, navigate to the directory that contains the bugged Designer folder. In my case, this was C:\Program Files\Inductive Automation\Ignition\data\projects\WaterWasteWaterHMI\com.inductiveautomation.perspective\views\Screens\General
3. The left window of the screenshot below shows the parent directory of the specific Designer view folder that was bugged out for me ("Trending" should be a view folder, but shows up in Designer as a broken view).
4. Open up the contents of the bugged view folder in File Explorer. You will find subfolders for any views and/or view folders you previously had defined in there. You should also notice a standalone file in that same directory called "resource.json" (see the right window in the screenshot below).
5. Move the "resource.json" file outside of the bugged folder. Save it somewhere else for now in case you need to restore it, but make sure that it no longer exists inside that bugged folder.
   • It is my understanding that this file is only supposed to exist within directories that correspond to Designer Views, not Designer View Folders. This would explain why the Designer is treating the bugged-out view folder as a standalone view when it is clearly not. Removing this file allows the Designer to recognize this file directory as a view folder instead of a standalone view. However, this is just my interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt.
6. Close any open instances of the Designer and restart your gateway. You can also use the "Scan File System" feature within the gateway if you don't want to restart it entirely; Just make sure to close and re-launch the designer after the scan is completed for your changes to take effect.
7. Open up your Designer and confirm that the issue is now fixed.
   • If not, restore your backup from Step 1 and contact support for further help.
   • If so, congratulations! Now save another backup, and do not delete the backup from Step 1.

[nminchin]

@eperiard

6. Close any open instances of the Designer and restart your gateway. You can also use the "Scan File System" feature within the gateway if you don't want to restart it entirely; Just make sure to close and re-launch the designer after the scan is completed for your changes to take effect.

Just regarding this, any change to project files on the file system that you make only requires that you:

• push "Scan File System" in the web portal under the Platform > Projects section
• then in the Designer, push "Update" to pull in those changes; no need to restart anything

Note: there is a same-named button "Scan File System" under Platform > Overview as well which pulls in gateway-scoped file system changes like changes to CSS theme files, icon libraries, etc. -- this does not pull in project file changes. Some gateway-scoped changes do require restarting the Designer to pull in these changes which are only read once on Designer startup, such as to regenerate the icon libraries picker UI with changes to icon libraries

[eperiard]

Oh, I was not aware of that. Thank you for clarifying