[Mediawiki-l] Mediawiki pages deleted after upgrade?

[Platonides]

Sullivan, James (NIH/CIT) [C] wrote:
>  
> I just had a strange experience and was wondering whether anyone else
> has run into this.  I have been upgrading various wikis from version
> 1.6.10 to 1.11.2 and moving their databases from a MySQL 4 DB to a MySQL
> 5.1 DB for the past month or so, and all seemed to be going well, but
> yesterday, after an upgrade was complete, I tried to modify the
> Mediawiki:Username page so it would display something other that the
> "Log in / create account" message.  When I tried to edit this page (as
> WikiSysop), I saw the following:
> 
> -"View or restore one deleted edit?" in small font with "deleted edit"
> being a link to the deletion log.
> -The following above the edit box: "You've followed a link to a page
> that doesn't exist yet. To create the page, start typing in the box
> below (see the help page for more info). If you are here by mistake,
> just click your browser's back button."
> -In the edit box is the text "Log in / create account".

The update script deletes unused redundant mediawiki messages which were 
previously automatically created, so it's normal.


> When I edited this text and tried to save, the Preview came up showing
> nothing in the preview area.  The Preview button does the same thing.
> Its as though the wiki is acting as though the page does not exist while
> showing me the text in the page.  I've tried other Mediawiki pages
> (those on the Special:Allmessages page) and I get the same behavior

The mediawiki namespace contents are directly fetch from the cache. I 
remember there was a bug where it showed the cached last version 
contents even in diffs. Perhaps this is a similar one with deleted 
revisions? What are you using as cache (memcache, APC...)?


> Now, when followed that deletion log link, it took me to the "View and
> restore deleted pages" page where it showed a history log of the
> "MediaWiki default" page.  I selected this page and hit the Restore
> button. The "Mediawiki:Username" page is now able to be edited but not
> other Mediawiki: pages.

> So for some reason, it seems all Mediawiki: pages are marked as deleted.
> Regular (Main:) pages are fine, and if I didn't need to modify the
> Mediawiki:Userlogin page I never would have known anything was wrong.

This is because you never edited them. Only the defaults were deleted.

> My question is whether this is normal behavior in 1.11.2 or whether I
> did something wrong during the upgrade.

The pages in mediawiki namespace delted is normal. Not being able to 
create them as WikiSysop is not.

> Thanks in advance for any pointers.  Just a final note: Since the wiki
> seems to be functioning well I'm living with this oddity, and if I need
> to modify another Mediawiki: page, I'll just undelete it too.  But it
> seems certain that something is not right with this wiki.
> 
> -Jim