Major New Bug when changing Author Names

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

Otis, when you change the name of a second or third author, the old name is simply being removed from books rather than replaced by the new name!

For example, there were a couple of books by "Gouws" all of which should be "Sonia Gouws". So I changed "Gouws" to "Sonia Gouws" but now neither name shows up on any of the books for which she was second author. Instead the second authorship position is blank. The third author is still there (when appropriate). This needs to be fixed before more authors are lost from books.

Edit 1: I have confirmed that the name change is transferring correctly for first authors, but not for second.

Edit 2: In this specific case I'm able to rescue it because I still have access to the original page of books and can go manually add her name back to all of them but I encountered it in another smaller case earlier today and didn't quite realize what had happened.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

This may not be a new bug. It certainly would explain why I have sometimes found whole clusters of books missing a second author (often with a third).

Thanks for the warning, Michael! I hope it gets fixed soon; meanwhile, we can work around it.

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

I realize I may need to be more specific. The problem occurs when you merge the name of a second author (and presumably third). I do not know if changing the name of a second author without merging it will cause the problem.

For obvious reasons I'm a bit loathe to test this, given the circumstances, although I'm sure I can fake some basic conditions to see what happens.

[Otis]

Good catch Michael! It took me 10 minutes to figure out what you meant, but I think I found it. Fix will be out in the next release (tomorrow night).

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

I'm glad you figured it out, I realize my description was a little scattered and had been considering rewording it.

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

Otis, I don't know if this is related or not, but currently whenever I try to merge an author, I get the standard DB error message "An unexpected error occurred. We will investigate this problem as soon as possible — please check back soon!" but the author is actually being merged.

Edit: I now think this is completely unrelated. I'm noticing that just going to certain author pages is generating this error. My guess is it will clear up on its own in a short time.