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CKEditor Collaboration: Risk of Data Loss Due to Delayed Content Synchronization

Open on Drupal.org →
Created on 21 February 2025, 5 months ago

Problem/Motivation

When using CKEditor Collaboration in Drupal, there is a short period where the body field is temporarily empty when editing large or complex content. If a user saves the node too quickly, the empty value gets stored, resulting in data loss.

This happens because CKEditor synchronizes content asynchronously:

- Form is loaded with the existing body field content.
- CKEditor initializes and removes the old value to prepare for content injection.
- Content is inserted into CKEditor (but this takes a moment, especially for large data).
- If the user saves too early, before CKEditor completes the sync, an empty body field is saved in Drupal.

This issue is particularly problematic when working with large content, embedded media, or complex HTML structures.

Steps to reproduce

- Enable CKEditor Collaboration on a content type's body field.
- Edit a node with a large or complex body field.
- Immediately after the form loads, press save before CKEditor finishes loading.
- Observe that the saved content is empty.

Proposed resolution

Some propositions but none is really perfect i believe :

1) Prevent Form Submission Until CKEditor is Ready
JavaScript should ensure CKEditor has loaded before allowing form submission.

2) Backend Validation in hook_form_validate()
Drupal should validate that the body field is not empty if it previously contained data.

3) Disable Submit Button Until CKEditor is Fully Loaded
The submit button should be disabled until CKEditor completes its initialization.

🐛 Bug report
Status

Active

Version

1.3

Component

Plugin: Collaboration

Created by

🇧🇪Belgium arwillame Belgium 🇧🇪

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