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Forum edit modal displays 1900 expiration for unpinned threads

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
77/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
javascript, php
Domain
backend, frontend

Research direction

Start with the forum edit response and the assignment to #expirationDate in site/public/js/forum.js; trace where the pinned_expiration value is supplied for an unpinned thread. Check the relevant forum edit tests or add coverage for the unpinned case. Done means the edit modal opens with the expiration field empty while still allowing an instructor to enter a future date.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Awaiting Triage bug

Describe the bug

Editing the first post of an unpinned discussion-forum thread displays the internal 1900-01-01 sentinel as an actual Expiration Date. The thread is not pinned, so the expiration control is misleading in this state.

Expected behavior

For an unpinned thread, the Expiration Date field should not display the internal sentinel value. It should be empty while remaining available if an instructor wants to set a future expiration date.

To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

  1. Sign in as an instructor and open a course's Discussion Forum.
  2. Open an unpinned thread.
  3. Open the first post's menu and select Edit.
  4. Observe that Expiration Date displays 1900-01-01 12:00 AM.

Configuration

  • OS: macOS
  • Browser: Chrome
  • Submitty version shown locally: v26.09.00

Screenshots

The edit modal displays the sentinel value as the Expiration Date:

Edit-post modal displaying 1900-01-01 as the expiration date

Additional context

On current main, unpinned threads use 1900-01-01 as the pinned_expiration sentinel. The forum edit response returns that value, and site/public/js/forum.js assigns it to #expirationDate. I searched existing open and closed issues for this sentinel and unpinned-thread expiration behavior and did not find a matching report.

Dominant language
PHP
Stars
804
Forks
1.1k
Avg merge
6d 18h
Merged PRs (30d)
62

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