Strapi issue data and here's a breakdown of common themes, top issues, and recommendations:
**1. Issue Themes and Categories**
* **Upgrade/Migration Issues:** A large number of issues stem from upgrading Strapi versions, particularly minor version updates. These often involve database inconsistencies, migration scripts failing, or core functionalities breaking after the update.
* **Plugin-Related Problems:** Many bugs are triggered by interactions with or within plugins, especially:
* `users-permissions` plugin: Problems with pagination, user listing, and data handling.
* `upload` plugin: Issues with file uploads, video dimensions, image optimization, filename handling, and storage provider integrations (AWS S3, Cloudinary, etc.).
* `graphql` plugin: Type generation problems, handling of nullable values, missing fields, and unexpected restrictions.
* `i18n` plugin: Issues with data integrity in different locales, particularly after using duplication or translation features.
* **Data Handling & Validation:** Problems with data validation, especially related to unique fields, relations (one-to-many), and filtering by boolean values in nested components.
* **Testing & Development Environment:** Difficulties setting up unit tests, and inconsistencies between local development and deployed environments.
* **Deployment & Infrastructure:** Problems specific to certain hosting platforms (Digital Ocean, Heroku), Docker configurations, and interactions with cloud storage providers.
* **Admin Panel & User Experience:** Issues with the admin interface, such as page loading errors, UI elements not working as expected (copy to clipboard), and missing or misleading error messages.
**2. Top 5 Most Reported or Frustrating Problems**
1. **Upgrade Breaking Changes:** Minor version updates causing significant breaking changes that require manual intervention and potentially lead to data loss. This is consistently a top pain point.
2. **Pagination Not Working in `users-permissions`:** The inability to properly paginate user lists via the standard API endpoints is a long-standing and widely reported problem.
3. **Missing/Incorrect GraphQL Types:** The GraphQL plugin generating incorrect or incomplete TypeScript types, especially related to nullability and relations.
4. **Upload Issues (Various):** The upload plugin is a constant source of problems, including but not limited to:
* `ENOSPC: no space left on device` errors (related to `/tmp` filling up).
* Inconsistent URL creation across different storage providers.
* Auto-orientation not being applied correctly
5. **Inability to Update Component Data Without Recreating** The inability to perform a simple update (PUT call) to a component.
**3. Major Regressions, Usability Challenges, and Confusion Points**
* **Regressions After Minor Updates:** Core functionality (like pagination, GraphQL types) and plugin behavior breaking after seemingly small updates.
* **Inconsistent Data Validation:** Unique field validation sometimes works (creation), sometimes doesn't (cloning), and happens at different layers. This creates developer confusion and potential data integrity issues.
* **Difficulties Extending Plugins:** The process for properly extending and customizing plugins (especially the `upload` plugin) is not straightforward, leading to workarounds and potential instability.
* **Error Message Obscurity:** Generic or unhelpful error messages (e.g., \"Something went wrong\") make debugging difficult and lead to wasted developer time.
* **Lack of Clear Guidance on Deployment:** Setting up Strapi for production (especially in cloud environments) can be challenging, with a lack of clear documentation or best practices for handling infrastructure-specific issues.
* **The Issue of User Permissions** : Seems that, it is difficult to manage the permissions of the users. Many of the users have had problems in this area.
**4. Recommendations for Improvement**
* **Prioritize Stability:** Focus on minimizing breaking changes in minor version updates. Implement more rigorous testing and validation processes.
* **Improve Error Handling and Reporting:** Implement a more robust error handling system that provides more informative error messages to developers, especially for validation failures and upload issues. This should include details about the affected field/component and specific reason for failure.
* **Refactor the GraphQL Plugin:** The GraphQL plugin needs a thorough review to address the long-standing issues related to type generation, nullability, and handling of relations.
* **Standardize and Simplify Plugin Customization:** Make it easier to extend and customize plugins, providing clear documentation and consistent APIs for overriding core functionality.
* **Enhance Documentation:** Improve documentation for common tasks, such as setting up production environments, working with cloud storage providers, and using lifecycle hooks. Specifically, it needs to be made clearer that:
* The database is wiped on import by design.
* The graphql and REST endpoints need to have separate configuration.
* How to use testing suite or a default project
* **Fix the user-permissions issue for pagination**
* **Revert to standard of using core features by extending the plugins, rather than having to change code within /nodes_module**
Let me know if you would like me to elaborate on any of these points.