Just discovered: Block IDs changed on a live site (7.1)

Site URL: https://www.isabelwilkerson.com/

I just discovered that some block IDs on a live 7.1 site have unexpectedly changed, breaking important custom CSS.  

I launched the site months ago and haven't made changes to the affected page since December. Thankfully, I guess, the site has only two pages and only the home page seems to be affected. No one else has edit access to it.

Has anyone else experienced this? Did I overlook an announcement in Release Notes about this?

I checked the site last week and didn't notice this issue. It's possible I overlooked it, as I was making a small content update to the Contact page. But I think I would have caught it and that the client would have too.

Thanks for any insight you can offer. Customer Care has nothing to offer beyond that helping with custom code is out of scope.

thanks,

~Laura

2 hours ago, Latrippi said:

Site URL: https://www.isabelwilkerson.com/

I just discovered that some block IDs on a live 7.1 site have unexpectedly changed, breaking important custom CSS.  

I launched the site months ago and haven't made changes to the affected page since December. Thankfully, I guess, the site has only two pages and only the home page seems to be affected. No one else has edit access to it.

Has anyone else experienced this? Did I overlook an announcement in Release Notes about this?

I checked the site last week and didn't notice this issue. It's possible I overlooked it, as I was making a small content update to the Contact page. But I think I would have caught it and that the client would have too.

Thanks for any insight you can offer. Customer Care has nothing to offer beyond that helping with custom code is out of scope.

thanks,

~Laura

So the css selector worked before but not now? Could you show which is the snippet you used

15 hours ago, bangank36 said:

So the css selector worked before but not now? Could you show which is the snippet you used

Thanks for the reply, @bangank36. Yes, a seemingly random group of block IDs and page section IDs on the homepage changed, breaking about 10 selectors using them.

It wasn't hard to recover, I just had to get the new IDs and swap them into the CSS. 

So for example, this:

/* video strip (footer): scrim behind quote: home, contacts */
#block-yui_3_17_2_1_1593485296024_40469, #block-yui_3_17_2_1_1594774365765_10694 {
	border-radius: 5px;
  	background: rgba(61, 59, 55, .6);
	}

became this:

/* video strip (footer): scrim behind quote: home, contacts */
#block-6a9c30f56ac16d0eb87a, #block-yui_3_17_2_1_1594774365765_10694 {
	border-radius: 5px;
  	background: rgba(61, 59, 55, .6);
	}

where the block ID of the first selector, on the homepage, had changed but not the second, the corresponding section on the Contacts page.

Other block IDs and a couple of page section IDs on the homepage had also changed, but not all of them. I couldn't find a pattern.

The changes weren't extensive, luckily, but it was unnerving to discover that the code had changed and the CSS built on it broken —  without warning. Luckily, I discovered it before the client did and was able to fix it all quickly.

But I'm wondering how to manage this and what other people's experience is.

I'm also wondering how to handle this with clients. Oh, by the way, the custom code you've paid me to create could break at any time without warning? That doesn't inspire confidence in the platform.

thanks,

~Laura

1 hour ago, Latrippi said:

a seemingly random group of block IDs and page section IDs on the homepage changed, breaking about 10 selectors using them.

Laura

Please see the guide I wrote many years ago here that specifies which selectors should remain static and which ones change:

https://sf.digital/squarespace-solutions/in-squarespace-what-are-the-differences-between-block-and-yui-selectors

However there is always the possibility that something can change because Squarespace engineers have changed something. 

10 minutes ago, paul2009 said:

Please see the guide I wrote many years ago here that specifies which selectors should remain static and which ones change:

https://sf.digital/squarespace-solutions/in-squarespace-what-are-the-differences-between-block-and-yui-selectors

However there is always the possibility that something can change because Squarespace engineers have changed something. 

Paul, thanks so much. That's a fantastic guide and the kind of thing I was looking for.

Except that what broke were Block IDs, not YUI IDs (which as your guide says, aren't persistent), and page section IDs, which I think are new in 7.1? 

So this seems to be a case of a change made by SqSp engineers to something in the platform that reshuffled a few block and page section IDs. I would think there would be a way for them to alert of us of possible disruptions when changes they make affect Block ID numbers.

But I guess I need to institute a workflow for checking every one of my client sites on regular intervals for broken CSS. Anyway, thanks again!