Joomla Permissions Issue - Slow Performance and Timeouts with Non-Super Users

[MayaSima]

Description:

I am experiencing performance issues with Joomla permissions on version 5.1.1. I created a group intended to have backend access, specifically to create or edit content. While everything works fine in general, accessing Content >> Articles is extremely slow and often times out or crashes the page. This issue arises when attempting to list articles. However, this problem does not occur when you log in as a Super User.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create a new user group with permissions to create or edit content.
   

2. Log in as a user from this group.
   

3. Navigate to Content >> Articles.
   

Expected Result:

The articles list should load efficiently without significant delay or timeouts.

Actual Result:

The page loads extremely slowly, often timing out and crashing.

Debugging Information:

Using the Joomla debugging tool, we discovered that:

• For non-Super Users, Joomla checks the asset table permissions for each article individually.
  

• This behavior does not occur with Super Users.
  

Screenshot:

The attached screenshot shows a profile trace comparison:

•     Left: Profile trace of a Super User.
  

•     Right: Profile trace of a user with set permissions.
  

Attachment

Question:

Can you confirm if this is a bug or native Joomla behavior?

Environment:

• Joomla Version: 5.1.1
  

• Number of Articles: ~9000
  

Additional Information:

The issue seems to be tied to how Joomla processes permissions for non-Super Users, causing a performance bottleneck when listing a large number of articles. Any insights or workarounds to alleviate this issue would be greatly appreciated.

[Fedik]

This happens because Access::preloadPermissions() preloads permissions for ALL 9000 articles
(which is around 90MB from your screenshot)

joomla-cms/libraries/src/Access/Access.php

Line 269 in 2d99f3b

protected static function preloadPermissions($assetType, $reload = false)

I set it as bug, however I have no idea how it can be fixed.
But I can understand that it gives a really bad experience of use the content editing.

It probably for all Joomla versions. Cannot find older similar issue about it.

[MayaSima]

I tried changing $preload to $preload = false in joomla-cms/libraries/src/Access/Access.php at line 155, but the issue still persists.

[Fedik]

After some testing, I think the actual slowdown is somewhere in ‎ArticlesModel::getListQuery() in the Administrator model

joomla-cms/administrator/components/com_content/src/Model/ArticlesModel.php

Lines 232 to 266 in 50726be

	->select(
	[
	$db->quoteName('fp.featured_up'),
	$db->quoteName('fp.featured_down'),
	$db->quoteName('l.title', 'language_title'),
	$db->quoteName('l.image', 'language_image'),
	$db->quoteName('uc.name', 'editor'),
	$db->quoteName('ag.title', 'access_level'),
	$db->quoteName('c.title', 'category_title'),
	$db->quoteName('c.created_user_id', 'category_uid'),
	$db->quoteName('c.level', 'category_level'),
	$db->quoteName('c.published', 'category_published'),
	$db->quoteName('parent.title', 'parent_category_title'),
	$db->quoteName('parent.id', 'parent_category_id'),
	$db->quoteName('parent.created_user_id', 'parent_category_uid'),
	$db->quoteName('parent.level', 'parent_category_level'),
	$db->quoteName('ua.name', 'author_name'),
	$db->quoteName('wa.stage_id', 'stage_id'),
	$db->quoteName('ws.title', 'stage_title'),
	$db->quoteName('ws.workflow_id', 'workflow_id'),
	$db->quoteName('w.title', 'workflow_title'),
	]
	)
	->from($db->quoteName('#__content', 'a'))
	->where($db->quoteName('wa.extension') . ' = ' . $db->quote('com_content.article'))
	->join('LEFT', $db->quoteName('#__languages', 'l'), $db->quoteName('l.lang_code') . ' = ' . $db->quoteName('a.language'))
	->join('LEFT', $db->quoteName('#__content_frontpage', 'fp'), $db->quoteName('fp.content_id') . ' = ' . $db->quoteName('a.id'))
	->join('LEFT', $db->quoteName('#__users', 'uc'), $db->quoteName('uc.id') . ' = ' . $db->quoteName('a.checked_out'))
	->join('LEFT', $db->quoteName('#__viewlevels', 'ag'), $db->quoteName('ag.id') . ' = ' . $db->quoteName('a.access'))
	->join('LEFT', $db->quoteName('#__categories', 'c'), $db->quoteName('c.id') . ' = ' . $db->quoteName('a.catid'))
	->join('LEFT', $db->quoteName('#__categories', 'parent'), $db->quoteName('parent.id') . ' = ' . $db->quoteName('c.parent_id'))
	->join('LEFT', $db->quoteName('#__users', 'ua'), $db->quoteName('ua.id') . ' = ' . $db->quoteName('a.created_by'))
	->join('INNER', $db->quoteName('#__workflow_associations', 'wa'), $db->quoteName('wa.item_id') . ' = ' . $db->quoteName('a.id'))
	->join('INNER', $db->quoteName('#__workflow_stages', 'ws'), $db->quoteName('ws.id') . ' = ' . $db->quoteName('wa.stage_id'))
	->join('INNER', $db->quoteName('#__workflows', 'w'), $db->quoteName('w.id') . ' = ' . $db->quoteName('ws.workflow_id'));

it takes a few seconds to load 20 articles from 40k on my test.
If I remove workflow Joins, it still more than a second.
Interestingly ‎ArticlesModel::getListQuery() in the Site model works much faster.
@richard67 do you have an idea what can be a bottleneck in this query?

Access preloading still preloads a lot, but it is doing it fast.

[Fedik]

It sems a few things:

• workflow joins,
• languages joins,
• users joins,

When I removing them, everything works much faster.

[Fedik]

Ah, it the same as #43701 I missed it, sorry.

[richard67]

@richard67 do you have an idea what can be a bottleneck in this query?

@Fedik No idea. Is already the part which you have linked (lines 232 to 266) so slow, without all that stuff which might be added later below? What I remember from some other issue is that it could be faster when changing the 3 inner joins to the workflow tables to left joins:

joomla-cms/administrator/components/com_content/src/Model/ArticlesModel.php

Lines 264 to 266 in 50726be

	->join('INNER', $db->quoteName('#__workflow_associations', 'wa'), $db->quoteName('wa.item_id') . ' = ' . $db->quoteName('a.id'))
	->join('INNER', $db->quoteName('#__workflow_stages', 'ws'), $db->quoteName('ws.id') . ' = ' . $db->quoteName('wa.stage_id'))
	->join('INNER', $db->quoteName('#__workflows', 'w'), $db->quoteName('w.id') . ' = ' . $db->quoteName('ws.workflow_id'));

[richard67]

Ah, it the same as #43701 I missed it, sorry.

@Fedik Yes, that's the one where I saw the thing with inner or left join for the workflow tables.

[Fedik]

Yea, with LEFT it 0.5s faster, but still slow in total 😄
Hmhm

it probably would be much smarter to split it to few queries:
load Articles,
load language data
load User data
load workflow data

Okay, maybe not that easy.

[brianteeman]

Kill workflow, problem solved :)

[Fedik]

Kill workflow, problem solved

It is not only workflow

[brianteeman]

but it makes no sense to query workflow tables when its not being used.

[Fedik]

Issue with access check hopefully will be fixed in #44078.
I close this issue for now. Thanks for reaport.