Pinning messages can go wrong with local room state desync

[anoadragon453]

Steps to reproduce

Doing the following:

• Pin a message in the room
• Unpin a different message (that I initially pinned) in the room.

...the timeline then looked like:

Outcome

The copy of these messages are inconsistent with one another. I would expect the first message to read more like:

anoa pinned a message from this room. See all pinned messages.

in order to match that of the unpinned message.

Operating system

Arch Linux

Application version

Element version: 1.9.5, Olm version: 3.2.3

How did you install the app?

Arch Linux repos

Homeserver

No response

Will you send logs?

No

[t3chguy]

The code claims to handle this correctly, the top state should show when there is more than 1 change happening at a time.

https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk/blob/ae0dba4e874834d050643ab5eb4e4fb6f929f339/src/TextForEvent.tsx#L523-L549

@anoadragon453 can you share the view source for the changed the pinned messages event (inc prev_content plz)

[anoadragon453]

Sure, here you are:

source of `changed the pinned messages` event

{
  "type": "m.room.pinned_events",
  "sender": "@andrewm:amorgan.xyz",
  "content": {
    "pinned": [
      "$Uvxqs5qV60FJqrM5YD7p0mcvKc_198Q12JjW83g6bUw",
      "$0qYG4_0L0npOqixy9EiZQoxaZPeNmLv-kMaarlE2Oy8"
    ]
  },
  "state_key": "",
  "origin_server_ts": 1638539585167,
  "unsigned": {
    "replaces_state": "$Rn0RQjL6qEl9h6icTsEqaUludKuLNcLITRnhiHL1aXE",
    "prev_content": {
      "pinned": [
        "$YILWYjC66FLdx5geGRSF1DfPSnzZOd3_eqOOi1GpF9Q",
        "$Uvxqs5qV60FJqrM5YD7p0mcvKc_198Q12JjW83g6bUw"
      ]
    },
    "prev_sender": "@andrewm:amorgan.xyz",
    "age": 219
  },
  "event_id": "$IvCi-rMCdrAb3_-XdO7yPbseKcDSzdRxz7rPkP6DXaw",
  "room_id": "!NiPbCUEXNokxKhTkeI:amorgan.xyz"
}

[anoadragon453]

Note that I pinned the message by simply hitting: message menu -> pin.

Do you need client logs?

[t3chguy]

Client logs won't help here, your client's room local state fell out of sync at some point, likely not recently.
This could either be due to faulty /sync in Synapse or due to IndexedDB/js-sdk issues

[t3chguy]

In this instance, Anoa's local room state was not synced up with reality and their act of Pinning a message caused another to be unpinned due to their client not knowing that one was in fact pinned.

[anoadragon453]

Interestingly, $YILWYjC66FLdx5geGRSF1DfPSnzZOd3_eqOOi1GpF9Q is the event I then unpinned right afterwards...

The source of the unpinned state event is:

Source for the `unpinned a message` state event

{
  "type": "m.room.pinned_events",
  "sender": "@andrewm:amorgan.xyz",
  "content": {
    "pinned": [
      "$Uvxqs5qV60FJqrM5YD7p0mcvKc_198Q12JjW83g6bUw",
      "$0qYG4_0L0npOqixy9EiZQoxaZPeNmLv-kMaarlE2Oy8"
    ]
  },
  "state_key": "",
  "origin_server_ts": 1638539706218,
  "unsigned": {
    "replaces_state": "$IvCi-rMCdrAb3_-XdO7yPbseKcDSzdRxz7rPkP6DXaw",
    "prev_content": {
      "pinned": [
        "$YILWYjC66FLdx5geGRSF1DfPSnzZOd3_eqOOi1GpF9Q",
        "$Uvxqs5qV60FJqrM5YD7p0mcvKc_198Q12JjW83g6bUw",
        "$0qYG4_0L0npOqixy9EiZQoxaZPeNmLv-kMaarlE2Oy8"
      ]
    },
    "prev_sender": "@andrewm:amorgan.xyz",
    "age": 230
  },
  "event_id": "$xB_Oet_qqTHz3Z1tLGLifsZeLRzdTAaR4XOEqEvxkcE",
  "room_id": "!NiPbCUEXNokzKhTkeI:amorgan.xyz"
}

[anoadragon453]

Also note that no other user/device has ever manipulated pinned messages in the room.

[natrius]

Question, do you need to activate something before its possible to pin a message? I tried on Desktop and on Android and its not possible.

[t3chguy]

@natrius this repo doesn't concern Android which is a separate codebase. On Web/Desktop it is behind Labs which needs to be enabled in config.json - such as it is on develop.element.io and Element Nightly

[anoadragon453]

Pinned events have had a lot of development since this issue was reported. I'll open a new issue if I see the same behaviour.