Browser hangs due to infinite loop when editing groups

[jlipka]

Describe the bug

In DSpace v8, there is a bug when editing (access control) groups under certain circumstances (see steps to reproduce). As a result, the browser hangs due to an infinite loop and the target page is never reached.

To Reproduce

1. Login as admin
2. Go to "EDIT > COLLECTION".
3. Select any collection - e.g. "Statistics > Books"
4. Click on "Assign Roles"
5. Click on any link to edit a group -- if none exists, create one using the UI buttons, in my case on "sandbox.dspace.org" the group is called "COLLECTION_7f052d6e-f7f7-4661-8347-701016969365_WORKFLOW_ROLE_editor".
6. Scroll down to the last section called "Groups" and click any link in the paginated table, for example, the "Administrator" item.
7. Now an endless loop starts, the browser hangs after a while and the UI gets stuck, the target link is never reached

While debugging or logging on the console, you can see (at least) in this line -

dspace-angular/src/app/access-control/group-registry/group-form/group-form.component.ts

Line 537 in ee7e835

return group.object;

- that this function is called in an infitine loop.

Other click sequences do not necessarily lead to the problem.

Expected behavior

The click on the link should not lead to an infinite loop.

[tdonohue]

Moving this to the maintenance board & flagging as high priority. I have not verified the behavior myself, but it sounds like a bug. Someone should also verify whether the same bug appears in 7.6.x or not.

[amgciadev]

Hi, I've replicated the issue in a 8.x instance, and can confirm that this does not happen in a 7.6.2 instance.

[alexandrevryghem]

Atmire would like to claim this

[tdonohue]

Thanks @alexandrevryghem ! Assigned to you