[BUG] Comment collapsing error

[NilsDy]

Describe the Bug:

Comments that were once collapsed and that are then deleted will cause frontend errors and if other non-deleted comments exist will cause pdfs to not load anymore.

Reproducibilty:

• Yes
• No
• Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce the Behavior:

(Describe as detailed as possible so others can reproduce the issue.)

1. Step 1
2. Step 2
3. ...

Expected Behavior:

(Describe what should happen under normal circumstances.)

Actual Behavior:

(Describe what actually happens instead.)

Screenshots:

(If applicable, upload screenshots of the issue to illustrate the problem.)

System Information:

• Device (OS/Type): (e.g., Windows 10, macOS Monterey, Android 12)
• Browser (+ Version): (e.g., Chrome 98, Firefox 105)
• CARE Software (Version/Branch): (Specify the version and branch of the software where the issue was found.)

Additional Information:

(Provide any additional information that could be useful, such as logs from the browser console, relevant files, or external dependencies.)

[NilsDy]

@junaidferoz

[junaidferoz]

Hi Nils,
It seems that I cannot assign this issue to myself. We need to find a way to assign my issues to me.

[junaidferoz]

Bug Description

Comments that were once collapsed and that are then deleted will cause frontend errors and if other non-deleted comments exist will cause pdfs to not load anymore.

Reproducibilty:

• Yes
• No
• Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce the Behavior:

1. Upload a document by selecting uplaod document button on the top right corner of the main menu you see after logging in.
2. Try to annotate on some comments. Eg. Select some statements and give comments
3. Save the comments by clicking on the save button
4. then delete the comment (or its reply) by clicking on delete button on the botton right side of the commets section (comments section is to the right hand side of the window). Or collapse the replies under hide comments.
5. Observe what happens

Expected Behaviour:

1. The next time you open to see the comments, the hidden comments should stay hidden (The ones you explicitly hid)
2. The deleted comments should not be visible again
3. There should not be any frontend errors. (If would be helpful if you please specify what frontend errors are we expecting here, like page not loading, document not viewing after you collapse or delete the comments, etc.)

Actual Behaviour:

1. Issue is reproducible (I try to collapse one comment reply to the main comment, and try to view it again. moreover

• I found some gibberish when I add the comment above (look at the first picture I attached under screenshots section)
• After sometime, i am not able to view the document I was annotating, though I am able to open the annotations section by clicking on the access document section. Please check the console logs attached
• This might be the error

PDFViewer.vue:171 [Vue warn]: Unhandled error during execution of component update 
  at <PDFViewer ref="pdfViewer" class="rounded border border-1 shadow-sm" style= {margin: 'auto'}  ... > 
  at <AnnotatorView key=1 ref="annotator" document-id=2 > 
  at <DocumentRoute documentHash="8aeeca98-590f-4939-acb7-6de3d0bc7846" class="top-padding" onVnodeUnmounted=fn<onVnodeUnmounted>  ... > 
  at <RouterView class="top-padding" > 
  at <App> 
  at <App>
warn$1 @ chunk-WUNXJPTP.js?v=3384045a:2091
logError @ chunk-WUNXJPTP.js?v=3384045a:2303
handleError @ chunk-WUNXJPTP.js?v=3384045a:2295
callWithErrorHandling @ chunk-WUNXJPTP.js?v=3384045a:2241
flushJobs @ chunk-WUNXJPTP.js?v=3384045a:2447

Screenshots:

1. 

System Information:

• Device (OS/Type): Windows 10 Pro
• Browser (+ Version): Brave version 146.1.88.132
• CARE Software (Version/Branch): On the current dev branch under the current dev version

[junaidferoz]

I have made the changes in the branch. The branch is attached to this issue

[junaidferoz]

I investigated the issue and fixed the frontend crash in the PDF highlights flow.

Root cause

1. When a comment was collapsed, we store a comment_state entry (state=1).
2. If that comment (or reply) was later deleted, the comment_state could still exist temporarily and reference a comment id that is no longer present in the frontend store.

PDFHighlights assumed that state.commentId always resolves to a valid comment and directly accessed:

comment.annotationId

This caused:

1. TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'annotationId')
2. Follow-up watcher/component update errors in PDFViewer
3. PDF view breaking after collapse + delete scenarios

Fix implemented (frontend)

In frontend/src/components/annotator/pdfViewer/Highlights.vue:

1. Made getAnnotationByCommentState(state) null-safe:

• return null if comment is missing
• return null if annotation is missing

2. Added guard logic in the commentStates watcher:

• skip processing when annotation is null
• avoid unsafe property reads on missing objects

Why this works

The component now safely ignores orphaned/stale comment_state references instead of throwing, so deleted collapsed comments no longer crash highlight/watcher updates and PDF rendering remains stable.

[NilsDy]

Thanks! The fix looks reasonable. Please make code adjustments according to my comments (7d49e0d#r179888108). Please open a merge request afterwards.