BlockManager is too eager in providing fallback to "Broken" block: it obscures genuine problems

Problem/Motivation

📌 Implement fallback plugin for Block plugins Fixed introduced:

1. \Drupal\Core\Block\Plugin\Block\Broken

2. class BlockManager extends DefaultPluginManager implements BlockManagerInterface, FallbackPluginManagerInterface {
   …
     public function getFallbackPluginId($plugin_id, array $configuration = []) {
       return 'broken';
     }
   …
   }
   

Which means that ANY invalid block plugin ID in a block config entity automatically falls back to this broken block plugin.

The primary purpose was to make it possible to install block config entities while the corresponding block_content content entity does not yet exist, and hence allow referencing block_content:<UUID> block plugins to automatically fall back to the broken plugin ID.

But … this is VERY broad. Too broad in many cases. So broad that it makes validating block config entities less meaningful 😞 This became clear in #3362457-17: Fix all PluginExistsConstraint constraint violations in tests → .

But changing this is hard now, because there could be other block plugins in contrib/custom that have similar 🌱 [meta] Deploying configuration that depends on content Active -style needs. Still, we should aim to narrow this.

Steps to reproduce

See #3362457-17: Fix all PluginExistsConstraint constraint violations in tests → : run \Drupal\Tests\block\Kernel\BlockValidationTest::testInvalidPluginId() and observe how a nonsencial plugin ID does not trigger any validation errors.

For contrast, see \Drupal\Tests\editor\Kernel\EditorValidationTest::testInvalidPluginId(), where a validation error is triggered.

Proposed resolution

1. Simple but more disruptive:
   

     public function getFallbackPluginId($plugin_id, array $configuration = []) {
       // Provide fallback for `block_content:*` blocks.
       // @see \Drupal\block_content\Plugin\Block\BlockContentBlock
       // @see \Drupal\block_content\Plugin\Derivative\BlockContent
       if (str_starts_with($plugin_id, 'block_content:')) {
         return 'broken';
       }
   
       // No fallback for anything else.
       return $plugin_id;
     }
   

2. More complex but less disruptive:
   

     public function getFallbackPluginId($plugin_id, array $configuration = []) {
       // Provide fallback for content-dependent block plugins.
       // @see \Drupal\block_content\Plugin\Block\BlockContentBlock
       // @see \Drupal\block_content\Plugin\Derivative\BlockContent
       foreach ($this->getContentDependentBlockPluginTypes() as $base_plugin_id) {
         if (str_starts_with($plugin_id, "$base_plugin_id:")) {
           return 'broken';
         }
       }
   
       // No fallback for anything else.
       return $plugin_id;
     }

   This needs some mechanism to identify the content-dependent block plugin types to allow contrib/custom block types to get the same behavior. Suggestion: do this via an annotation on block plugin types.

Remaining tasks

TBD

User interface changes

TBD

API changes

TBD

Data model changes

TBD

Release notes snippet

TBD