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[Bug]: PortalController.UpdatePortalSetting does not invalidate multilingual PortalSettings cache

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
55/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
csharp
Domain
backend

Research direction

Start with PortalController.UpdatePortalSettingInternal and GetPortalSettingsDictionary, then trace how DataCache keys and clears the per-culture settings dictionaries. Add a focused regression test that primes both culture caches, updates a neutral setting, and verifies both reads return the new value without a restart or full cache clear.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Status: New
Is there an existing issue for this?
  • I have searched the existing issues
What happened?

On multilingual installations, newly created portals can keep stale portal settings in memory until DNN is restarted.

A neutral portal setting written through PortalController.UpdatePortalSetting is saved correctly to the PortalSettings table, but subsequent reads through PortalController.GetPortalSettings / GetPortalSetting can still return the old cached dictionary for each culture.

This causes extensions relying on custom portal settings to believe the setting is missing and recreate state repeatedly. In our case, 2sxc stores TsDynDataZoneId as a portal setting. The DB contains the correct TsDynDataZoneId, but DNN keeps returning a settings dictionary without that key, so every visit to Manage Apps creates another 2sxc Zone. Restarting DNN immediately fixes the issue because the private dictionary cache is cleared.

Steps to reproduce?
  1. Install DNN with multiple languages enabled, for example de-DE and en-US.
  2. Create a new multilingual portal.
  3. Cause DNN to load portal settings for multiple cultures before a custom neutral setting exists, for example:
    • PortalController.Instance.GetPortalSettings(portalId, "de-DE")
    • PortalController.Instance.GetPortalSettings(portalId, "en-US")
  4. Write a neutral portal setting:
    • PortalController.UpdatePortalSetting(portalId, "MyCustomSetting", "value")
  5. Read it back through PortalController:
    • PortalController.GetPortalSetting(portalController, "MyCustomSetting", portalId, "", "de-DE")
    • PortalController.GetPortalSetting(portalController, "MyCustomSetting", portalId, "", "en-US")
  6. Compare with direct DB/DataProvider read.
Current Behavior

PortalController.GetPortalSettings / GetPortalSetting can return stale per-culture dictionaries that do not include the newly saved neutral portal setting.

The setting exists in dbo.PortalSettings and is returned by DataProvider.Instance().GetPortalSettings(portalId, cultureCode), but PortalController still returns the old cached value until DNN restart/full cache clear.

Expected Behavior

After PortalController.UpdatePortalSetting(..., clearCache: true), all PortalController read APIs should return the updated portal setting for the affected portal/cultures.

Relevant log output
Anything else?

The affected code path appears to be in PortalController.GetPortalSettingsDictionary.

It caches settings using:
DataCache.PortalSettingsCacheKey = "PortalSettings{0}{1}"

and stores the result through:
CBO.GetCachedObject<Dictionary<string, string>>(..., saveInDictionary: true)

That means the settings dictionary is stored in DataCache's private DictionaryCache.

UpdatePortalSettingInternal clears:

  • DataCache.ClearPortalCache(portalId, false)
  • DataCache.RemoveCache(DataCache.PortalDictionaryCacheKey)
  • one HttpContext.Items entry for the active culture

but it does not remove the private DictionaryCache entries for:

  • PortalSettings{portalId}de-DE
  • PortalSettings{portalId}en-US
  • other portal cultures

DataCache.ClearCache() does clear DictionaryCache, which explains why restarting DNN fixes the issue.

Suggested DNN-side fix:
When UpdatePortalSettingInternal runs with clearCache = true, remove PortalSettings private dictionary cache entries for the affected portal. For a neutral setting, clear all portal culture variants because neutral settings are returned through every culture dictionary.

A focused regression test should:

  1. Prime GetPortalSettings(portalId, "de-DE") and GetPortalSettings(portalId, "en-US") before the setting exists.
  2. Call PortalController.UpdatePortalSetting(portalId, "TestSetting", "value").
  3. Assert that GetPortalSetting(..., "de-DE") and GetPortalSetting(..., "en-US") both return "value" without restart/full cache clear.
Affected Versions

10.3.1 (latest release)

What browsers are you seeing the problem on?

No response

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