Cloning Entities containing Layout Paragraphs breaks structure

The two hidden fields in each layout paragraph have the wrong value in the clone. How are they filled typically?

• layout-paragraphs-region
• layout-paragraphs-parent-uuid

For example, all paragraph contents have:
layout-paragraphs-region="_disabled"

And I found this code mentioning the "replicate" module in layout_paragraphs.module, line 83:

/**
 * Implements hook_ENTITY_presave().
 *
 * Updates references to parent layout section uuids in cases
 * where paragraphs are duplicated, for example when using the
 * Replicate module.
 *
 * @todo Consider changing approach if this issue is addressed in core:
 * https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/3040556
 * (It is not possible to react to an entity being duplicated)
 */
function layout_paragraphs_paragraph_presave(Paragraph $paragraph) {
  $behavior_settings = $paragraph->getAllBehaviorSettings();
  $layout_paragraphs_settings = $behavior_settings['layout_paragraphs'] ?? [];
  if (!empty($layout_paragraphs_settings['parent_uuid']) && $parent = $paragraph->getParentEntity()) {
    $parent_field = $paragraph->get('parent_field_name');
    $field_name = $parent_field->first()->getString();
    $item_list = $parent->get($field_name);
    /** @var \Drupal\Core\Field\EntityReferenceFieldItemList $item_list */
    $sibling_paragraphs = $item_list->referencedEntities();
    if (count($sibling_paragraphs)) {
      $uuid_map = [];
      foreach ($sibling_paragraphs as $delta => $item) {
        $uuid_map[$item->uuid()] = $delta;
      }
      $parent_delta = $uuid_map[$layout_paragraphs_settings['parent_uuid']] ?? NULL;
      // If the parent layout section is correctly referenced via
      // parent_uuid, save the parent delta so we can correctly map
      // uuids using the delta if content is duplicated.
      if (isset($parent_delta)) {
        $layout_paragraphs_settings['parent_delta'] = $parent_delta;
      }
      // If the parent layout section cannot be found via parent_uuid,
      // use parent_delta to find and save the correct parent_uuid.
      // This should only happen when the paragraph is being duplicated,
      // and the parent layout section's uuid no longer matches parent_uuid.
      elseif (isset($layout_paragraphs_settings['parent_delta'], $sibling_paragraphs[$layout_paragraphs_settings['parent_delta']])) {
        $updated_parent_uuid = $sibling_paragraphs[$layout_paragraphs_settings['parent_delta']]->uuid();
        $layout_paragraphs_settings['parent_uuid'] = $updated_parent_uuid;
      }
      // Since paragraph::preSave() has already been called,
      // we have to set the serialized behavior settings directly
      // rather than using setBehaviorSettings().
      $behavior_settings['layout_paragraphs'] = $layout_paragraphs_settings;
      $paragraph->set('behavior_settings', serialize($behavior_settings));
    }
  }
}

on the one hand I think this should then work with entity_clone (but doesn't) and on the other hand it won't work for quick_node_clone as it prefills the clone form with copies. So we'd need a different strategy there?

Replicate seems pretty dead for Drupal 8 / 9?

Ok to me it seems that Paragraph::createDuplicate() which is for exmaple used in Quick Node Clone does NOT clone behaviourSettings, is that correct?

While Layout Paragraphs uses behaviourSettings to store this information. Furthermore would the parent_uuid have to be updated after getting the $paragraphs->createDuplicate() happened?

Yes that was very close to the reason :)

Indeed createDuplicate() also duplicates the Behaviour Settings, but createDuplicate() also correctly renews UUIDs so that parent_uuid values are pointing to the old paragraphs and have to be updated!

So what has to be done here is to save the old paragraph UUIDs from before the cloning and after the cloning and replace the old ones with the new ones.

I created example working code directly in Quick node clone, see https://www.drupal.org/project/quick_node_clone/issues/3218222#comment-1...

But I guess it shouldn't be Quick Node Clone specific. What we need is a hook on Entity::createDuplicate() (e.g. Paragraph::createDuplicate()) which provides us with the old and the duplicate paragraph entity and put the parent_uuid logic there.

Hi @just2pin and thank you very much for your fast reply!

The reason why Quick Node Clone does not call hook_paragraph_presave() is that it only prefills the form with the cloned values, but does not save them yet. It only creates the copies without calling ->save() - which is a quite helpful way to create entity copies. Entity clone creates the clone first. Anyway it has the same problems as written above, I didn't test why as I like the Quick Node Clone strategy.

So what would be your suggestion on how to proceed here? I guess for Entity clone it might be solvable by debugging the presave hook. For Quick Node Clone I have no clue until #3040556: It is not possible to react to an entity being duplicated is fixed. But as you know the layout_paragraphs code better than me, it would be very helpful if you could add some information if the Quick Node Clone patch won't work for 2.x what to change.

Any further ideas welcome! :)

As @justin2pin wrote in #5 we should focus on 2.x version and I think we don't need a backport, as 1.x can hopefully be deprecated with a full and clean upgrade path to 2.x!

So let's use the information from above for 2.x and ensure cloning will work there, at least with any cloning module.

GREAT work @andrewmriv!! :)

Yes would be great if you could test that for 2.x and create a merge request for that. 1.x patch is ready for review I guess?

Hi @justin2pin,
thank you very much for your patch! This is quite complex.

How do we use it? Does it work with Quick Node Clone and Entity Clone?
Or is it about duplicating single paragraphs and not the parent entity / node?

Clarified the title for 2.x

Thank you for wrapping this up so great @hudri! So should we set #15 RTBC? Or does it need a reroll against latest 2.0.x-dev? Then it would be cool if someone could do this with an interdiff.

Nice to see this close to be fixed! :)

@justin2pin: This is a bit off-topic, but please see my comment #22 in #2910237: Deprecate Quick Node Clone in favour of Entity Clone I don't know where, who and how, but as you said in #26 the current situation isn't good for Drupal 8+ at all. Several cloning modules exist, but none of them is able to handle all kind of entities. For Drupal developers it's bad, for Drupal customers this is a mess in UX, so it would be nice if we could push things forwards somewhere ;)

Now BTT! I think #26 is the right way to go for layout_paragraphs until there is one clone module to rule them all.

Great news @godotislate!!
@justin2pin what do you think regarding that (#31) and the state of this issue? There still seems no clean way to clone nodes with Layout Builder on it? How should we proceed?

@guiu.rocafort.ferrer are you planning to further work on MR!69 in the meantime? I tried replicating it to 2.2.x and 3.0.x but then saw that it seems to be incomplete compared to #15? So definitely needs work, while

#31 seems to be the correct way to go.

Very much hoping for feedback from @justin2pin :)

Update:
In #3546997: Starting with Drupal ^11.2 with latest Paragraph do not need Paragraphs duplicates there's being worked with the new hooks in Quick Node Clone!

Paragraphs also already implemented the new hooks: #3495373: Support duplicate hook