Updating a copied "Pay with PayPal" block works like reusable blocks (affecting other references of the same block)

[arunsathiya]

Quick summary

I can't figure a good title here, but I hope the summary explains the issue: editing a copy of the "Pay with PayPal" block makes the update to all previous copies of the same "Pay with PayPal" block. Editing a new "Pay with PayPal" block does not affect the others though.

Steps to reproduce

• Start with a WordPress.com site on the WordPress.com Premium plan or higher: https://wordpress.com/support/pay-with-paypal/
• Add a "Pay with PayPal" block to the page.
• Copy the block.
• Paste it on the same page. (Or just use Gutenberg's duplicate function)
• Save changes to the page.
• Edit one of the two blocks.
• Save changes.
• Refresh the page.
• See that the update affects both "Pay with PayPal" blocks, while it must affect only the one that's edited.
• Creating/editing a new "Pay with PayPal" block does not affect the previous copied versions though.

What you expected to happen

Editing a copied "Pay with PayPal" affects only that block, not the previous references of the same block.

What actually happened

All references are updated.

Context

Customer bug report: 4540958-zen.

Operating System

macOS

Browser

Mozilla Firefox

Simple, Atomic or both?

Simple, Atomic

Theme-specific issue?

No.

Other notes

No response

Reproducibility

Consistent

Severity

All

Available workarounds?

No but the platform is still usable

Workaround details

Workaround is to create the new "Pay with PayPal" block instead of duplicating an existing one.

[arunsathiya]

Also posted here: pNPgK-5B3-p2 cc @inaikem

[DavidRothstein]

I couldn't reproduce this myself (in general I found the content of the block didn't duplicate at all sometimes, but when it did -- maybe only after an autosave? -- it seemed to be two separate blocks, and editing the first block and saving didn't have any effect on the other).

I'm ccing @Automattic/view-engineering though, which I think still maintains these blocks.

[stacimc]

👋 There's a jetpack issue tracking this: Automattic/jetpack#12801

The issue is that when you duplicate or copy a Pay With PayPal block, all of its attributes including the productId attribute get copied into the new block. The productId is internal to the block so this is not immediately apparent to a user, but consequently all changes to either block get posted to the same underlying product.

To fix this we need a change in Gutenberg to allow for preventing certain attributes from being copied on block duplication. I created an issue in Gutenberg and opened a PR for it here to do just that, which still needs community review.

[kosiew]

Marking as Triaged since it's already on Shilling's radar.

[rinazrina]

Another report here: 4695735-zen

[MaxPhilip]

Another report in 4758262-zen / 4749729-zen

[davipontesblog]

Another report in 5240302-zen

[cuemarie]

Another report here: 35950266-hc

[Joshgrygiel]

Another report here: 36442397-hc

[github-actions]

Support References

This comment is automatically generated. Please do not edit it.

• 4540958-zen
• 4695735-zen
• 4758262-zen
• 4749729-zen
• 5240302-zen
• 5735863-zen
• 5788907-zen
• 6286760-zen
• 9020583-zen

[mzitinfo]

This issue popped up again in 5735863-zen

[cecilearkay]

Another report in 22776651-hc

[MaxPhilip]

Another report in 5788907-zen

[zdenys]

41694914-hc

[donalirl]

#6286760-zen

Perhaps the Duplicate and Copy block features should be disabled for Pay with PayPal?

[lailagmelo]

I was able to replicate the issue. Creating multiple blocks individually instead of duplicating is a valid workaround.

#9020583-zen