Fixing Broken Social Cards: A Routing Issue

by Admin 44 views
Fixing the Social Card Routing Conflict: A Guide

Hey guys, this article dives deep into a tricky issue that's been causing social cards to break on our platform. Specifically, the problem centers around a conflict in how our system routes requests, leading to OpenGraph images not loading properly when users try to share events or polls on social media. Let's break down the issue, why it's happening, and, most importantly, how we're going to fix it. We'll also cover some best practices to avoid this in the future.

The Core Problem: Why Are Social Cards Broken?

So, what's the deal? The main culprit is a routing conflict within our Phoenix router. Imagine our system as a busy street, and each type of content has its own dedicated lane. In this case, our social cards—those handy images that pop up when you share a link on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn—were getting diverted to the wrong lane. Specifically, the route for aggregated content was accidentally intercepting requests for social card images before they could reach their intended destination. This is why when you share a link, it doesn't show the nice preview image.

The Aggregated Content Route

To understand this, we need to look at our route setup. We have a route designed to handle aggregated content, things like lists of events or collections of information. This route uses a pattern like /:content_type/:identifier. It's designed to be flexible and catch a variety of content types. The problem? It's a bit too catch-all.

The Social Card Routes

On the other hand, we have dedicated routes for our social cards. These routes are designed to generate the images specifically for social sharing. They use patterns like /:slug/social-card-:hash/*rest. The issue here is the order in which the routes are processed.

The Clash: Route Processing Order

Phoenix processes routes in the order they're defined. The aggregated content route, because it appears earlier in the router, captures the social card requests first. Here's a quick example:

  1. Request: A user tries to share an event, and the system tries to load the social card image located at https://wombie.com/fuzbklq14z/social-card-7f2e0693.png.
  2. Match: The aggregated content route /:content_type/:identifier matches this URL. Phoenix thinks, "Aha! This is aggregated content," and sends the request to the AggregatedContentLive component.
  3. Failure: AggregatedContentLive doesn't know what to do with a social card request. It tries to handle it as aggregated content, which results in an error. The image fails to load, and the social card is broken.

The Impact: What's the Damage?

The consequences of this routing conflict are pretty significant, affecting our users and our platform's visibility.

  • Broken Social Card Images: The most visible impact is that event and poll social cards won't appear when shared on social media. No image means less engagement.
  • Missing OpenGraph Images: OpenGraph images are crucial for social media sharing. They give users a preview of the content they're sharing, increasing click-through rates. Without them, your content looks less appealing, and people are less likely to click.
  • Potential SEO Issues: Missing social cards can negatively impact our SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Social media plays a vital role in our online presence, and these images are a key factor in driving traffic and engagement.

The Root Cause: What Caused This Mess?

The primary reason for this issue is the route order in the router file. The catch-all nature of the aggregated content route makes it grab all the requests before the routes designed for social cards.

  • Recent Changes: Recent work on the aggregated content and new features is likely the cause.
  • Route Precedence: Phoenix processes routes in the order they are defined. If a more general route (like the aggregated content route) is defined before a more specific route (like the social card route), the general route will always take precedence.

The Fix: How Do We Solve This Problem?

Luckily, there are several ways to fix this. We'll consider a few solutions.

Option 1: Move Social Card Routes (Recommended Solution)

The best and most straightforward solution is to change the order of the routes. Put the social card routes before the aggregated content route. This way, any request for a social card image will be correctly directed to the appropriate controller.

Pros: This is the simplest and most reliable solution. There is no performance impact, and the existing URL patterns are maintained. It follows Phoenix's best practices.

Implementation: To implement this fix, you'd rearrange the routes in your router.ex file. Place the social card routes at the top of the file, above the route for aggregated content.

Option 2: Route Constraints for Aggregated Content

Another approach involves adding a constraint to the aggregated content route to prevent it from matching social card patterns. This is a bit more complex but can maintain the logical grouping of routes.

Pros: This approach keeps all the relevant routes together in the router and is self-documenting.

Cons: It's more complex than simply reordering the routes. Implementing this method will add an extra layer of checking, which may slightly impact performance.

Implementation: This would require creating a custom constraint module to identify and exclude social card URLs from being matched by the aggregated content route.

Option 3: Restructure Aggregated Content Routes

A third option is to change the structure of the aggregated content routes to avoid conflict. This will provide a clearer URL structure and remove dependencies. However, this is more work because it could break existing URLs.

Pros: Offers a clearer URL structure and eliminates routing dependencies.

Cons: It is a breaking change and will require redirects for old URLs. This option is also more complex to implement.

Implementation: You'd need to modify the aggregated content routes to use a different pattern, such as adding a /browse/ prefix. This would require updating the code that generates and uses those URLs, and setting up redirects to ensure old URLs still work.

Recommended Action

For simplicity, efficiency, and to maintain the existing URL patterns, Option 1 is our top recommendation. Reordering the routes is a quick and effective solution that immediately resolves the issue, preventing any further problems.

Testing the Fix: Ensuring Everything Works

After implementing the fix, a thorough testing process is essential to make sure everything works correctly and doesn't create any new problems. Here's what we need to verify:

  1. Event Social Cards:

    • Check event pages and verify that the social card images are displayed correctly in the meta tags.
    • Test the social card URL directly in your browser to confirm that the image loads without any errors.
    • Test that the hash validation is working correctly.

  2. Poll Social Cards:

    • Navigate to a poll page and check the meta tags to verify the correct image source.
    • Test the generation of poll social card URLs to make sure they're being created correctly.
    • Verify that the image returned is the correct image.

  3. City Social Cards:

    • Verify that city social cards are still working as expected.
    • Check hash validation for cities.

  4. Aggregated Content Routes:

    • Test that the aggregated content routes work correctly.

  5. Social Media Preview:

    • Use the Facebook Debugger tool to check how social media preview displays images and meta tags.
    • Test with Twitter Card Validator, and the LinkedIn Post Inspector to ensure that social cards appear correctly on these platforms.

References and Further Reading

To better understand the problem and the proposed solutions, please refer to the following documents and files:

  • Router file: lib/eventasaurus_web/router.ex
  • Event social card controller: lib/eventasaurus_web/controllers/event_social_card_controller.ex
  • Poll social card controller: lib/eventasaurus_web/controllers/poll_social_card_controller.ex
  • City social card controller: lib/eventasaurus_web/controllers/city_social_card_controller.ex
  • Social card documentation: SOCIAL_CARDS_DEV.md
  • ADR 002: docs/adr/002-social-card-architecture.md

These resources will provide you with a deeper understanding of the code and the context of the issue.

Related Issues and Future Considerations

This incident highlights some important considerations for our platform moving forward:

  • Catch-All Routes: Be cautious when creating catch-all routes, as they can inadvertently conflict with more specific routes. Pay close attention to route order and consider the potential impact.
  • Route Documentation: It might be good to create a documentation system to address these types of conflicts and to prevent similar problems in the future.
  • Review: Make sure to review all catch-all routes to ensure that there are no future conflicts.

Created: 2025-01-25 Severity: High (breaks social media sharing) Priority: Immediate fix required