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Automatic closing of duplicate issues

Added by Maxim Krušina almost 16 years ago

I'm not sure how it's for others, but for me automatic closing of linked issues is not a good solution. Why? When I (project manager) detect duplicate issues, I mark less significant ticket as duplicate and then I imediatelly close second (duplicated) issue. This is IMHO normal behaviour, because I don't want to be floded with duplicated issues, so there should be only one of all duplicated issues open - otherwise, users will start comment and develop different issues, which is not good.

But now, when I close secondary ticket (as closed), Redmine will automatically close both linked tickets, which is not correct behaviour... What others think?


Replies (7)

RE: Automatic closing of duplicate issues - Added by Carl Nygard almost 16 years ago

+1

This always bugged me, but I never took the time to complain. Usually as a compromise I just resolve the issue, then wait till the original is closed.

Haven't looked at the code, so I'll just ask. Is this behavior differentiated on the type of issue link? Example, if a bug X depends on bug Y, if Y is closed, is X closed also?

Personally I think modifying related issues automatically is wrong.

RE: Automatic closing of duplicate issues - Added by Jean-Philippe Lang almost 16 years ago

I made a change to this behaviour in r1488.

Now, assuming 2 is a duplicate of 1:
  • closing 2 won't close 1
  • closing 1 will automatically close 2

When looking at the relations, you will now see 'duplicates' or 'duplicated by'.

RE: Automatic closing of duplicate issues - Added by Loban Rahman over 15 years ago

This "feature" caught me with my pants down too. In all issue trackers I've used before (esp. bugzilla and trac), marking ticket A as duplicate of ticket B auto-closes A (and in some trackers, can optionally transfer all comments and attachments to B). When I noticed that marking a duplicate relation in Redmine doesn't auto-close A, I went ahead and closed all A. Only later did I realized that my actions had closed both!

I like the new behaivor Jean-Phillippe said. Even better would be if B is auto-closed when marking it a duplicate of A, or at least an option should exist to auto-close it.

RE: Automatic closing of duplicate issues - Added by Loban Rahman over 15 years ago

Oops, I just realized I interchanged A and B in the last sentence.

RE: Automatic closing of duplicate issues - Added by Woody Thrower over 12 years ago

I realize this is an old thread, but it's still an issue in my mind.

If I mark an issue as a duplicate, both issues can still be prioritized and estimated differently, associated with different target versions, etc. This seems broken. Also, the behavior of duplicate issues is non-obvious. In my experience, the first time anyone encounters a duplicate issue (I've used Redmine at three different companies now, so I've had a chance to observe people learning it), they try to close it. Depending on the direction of the relationship ("duplicates" vs. "duplicated by"), they may inadvertently close the other issue.

It could be argued that this is a training issue, that it is working by design, that stupid people shouldn't use software, that it's not a problem once you learn how it works, etc... but I prefer to see this as a usability issue that needs to be addressed.

I would like it if Redmine did the following when an issue was marked as a duplicate.
  • Relate the issue to the issue that it is said to duplicate (as it currently does).
  • Consider the duplicate issue closed (by setting the status to a reserved "Duplicate" status, or whatever.

With that approach, it would be much more difficult than it is now to overlook the fact that the duplicate issue had been closed.

RE: Automatic closing of duplicate issues - Added by Tobias Fischer about 12 years ago

Woody Thrower wrote:

I realize this is an old thread, but it's still an issue in my mind.

I would like it if Redmine did the following when an issue was marked as a duplicate.
  • Relate the issue to the issue that it is said to duplicate (as it currently does).
  • Consider the duplicate issue closed (by setting the status to a reserved "Duplicate" status, or whatever.

+1

Very important for me, too!

RE: Automatic closing of duplicate issues - Added by Karlheinz Petersen almost 12 years ago

+1

doing this by hand now for every single duplicating task.

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