feat: add data migration to sync DiscussionsConfiguration with modulestore tab.is_hidden

[Anas12091101]

Description

We introduced a fix in #38084 to synchronize DiscussionsConfiguration.enabled (DB) with tab.is_hidden (modulestore) during course imports. While this resolves the issue for newly imported courses, existing courses that are currently out of sync still need to be updated so that course authors see the correct values.

This PR adds a data migration that reads each course's discussion tab from CourseOverviewTab (a DB-level cache of modulestore tabs) and updates both DiscussionsConfiguration.enabled and CourseAppStatus.enabled to match (enabled = NOT is_hidden). Only out-of-sync rows are updated. The migration uses CourseOverviewTab instead of the modulestore directly to avoid performance issues at scale.

Useful information to include:

• Which edX user roles will this change impact? Course Author"
• Include screenshots for changes to the UI (ideally, both "before" and "after" screenshots, if applicable).
• Provide links to the description of corresponding configuration changes. Remember to correctly annotate these
  changes.

Supporting information

#38084 (comment)

Testing instructions

1. Rollback 0019 if already applied:

python manage.py migrate discussions 0018

2. Create unsynced data in the shell:

from openedx.core.djangoapps.content.course_overviews.models import CourseOverview, CourseOverviewTab
from openedx.core.djangoapps.discussions.models import DiscussionsConfiguration
from openedx.core.djangoapps.course_apps.models import CourseAppStatus
from opaque_keys.edx.keys import CourseKey

course_key = CourseKey.from_string("course-v1:U0X12+CS11013+UAI_22")

overview, _ = CourseOverview.objects.get_or_create(id=course_key, defaults={"version": 1})

tab, _ = CourseOverviewTab.objects.update_or_create(
    course_overview=overview,
    tab_id="discussion",
    defaults={"is_hidden": True},
)

config, _ = DiscussionsConfiguration.objects.update_or_create(
    context_key=course_key,
    defaults={"enabled": True},
)

app_status, _ = CourseAppStatus.objects.update_or_create(
    course_key=course_key,
    app_id="discussion",
    defaults={"enabled": True},
)

# Verify the desync
print(f"Tab is_hidden: {tab.is_hidden}")            # True
print(f"Config enabled: {config.enabled}")           # True  (should be False)
print(f"AppStatus enabled: {app_status.enabled}")    # True  (should be False)

3. Visit the Pages and Resources page in the authoring MFE and verify that the discussion configuration is unsynced

4. Run the migration:

python manage.py migrate discussions 0019

5. Verify the fix:

from openedx.core.djangoapps.discussions.models import DiscussionsConfiguration
from opaque_keys.edx.keys import CourseKey

6. Repeat step 3 and verify that the configuration is now synced

config = DiscussionsConfiguration.objects.get(context_key=CourseKey.from_string("course-v1:TestOrg+Test101+2026"))
print(f"Config enabled: {config.enabled}")  # Should now be False

Deadline

"None"

Other information

Include anything else that will help reviewers and consumers understand the change.

• Does this change depend on other changes elsewhere?
• Any special concerns or limitations? For example: deprecations, migrations, security, or accessibility.
• If your database migration can't be rolled back easily.

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[Anas12091101]

The CourseAppStatus model is what the Pages & Resources MFE actually reads to determine whether the Discussion app shows as "Enabled" or "Disabled". When the API endpoint /api/course_apps/v1/apps/{course_id} is called, it first checks CourseAppStatus.enabled for the "discussion" app and only falls back to DiscussionsConfiguration.is_enabled()( if no row exists. So updating DiscussionsConfiguration.enabled alone is not enough; if a CourseAppStatus row already exists with enabled=True, the MFE will still show the discussion tab as enabled regardless of what DiscussionsConfiguration says. This is why we update both models in the migration to ensure the UI reflects the actual tab visibility from the course structure.

[kdmccormick]

Wow, there are so many layers 😵

@Anas12091101 When a course is imported, does CourseAppStatus.enabled get updated from the modulestore tab's is_hidden state, like you did for DiscussionConfiguration.enabled? (If not, then am I correct to understand that this migration would only be a one-time fix for existing CourseAppStatuses, and the issue would continue for future imports?)

[kdmccormick]

Glad that the CourseOverviewTab model works! Thanks for the suggestion, Dave.

[kdmccormick]

Wow, there are so many layers 😵

@Anas12091101 When a course is imported, does CourseAppStatus.enabled get updated from the modulestore tab's is_hidden state, like you did for DiscussionConfiguration.enabled? (If not, then am I correct to understand that this migration would only be a one-time fix for existing CourseAppStatuses, and the issue would continue for future imports?)

[Anas12091101]

@kdmccormick, you’re absolutely right. Here’s what’s actually happening:

When a course is published (including after an import), two independent Celery tasks are triggered by the course_published signal. The first is update_discussions_settings_from_course_task, which reads the course tabs from the modulestore, derives enabled = not tab.is_hidden for the discussion tab, and passes it through CourseDiscussionConfigurationData. The COURSE_DISCUSSIONS_CHANGED event fires, and the handler updates DiscussionsConfiguration.enabled in the database.

The second is update_course_apps_status, which iterates over all available course apps and calls each app's is_enabled() method. For the discussion app, DiscussionCourseApp.is_enabled() calls DiscussionsConfiguration.is_enabled(course_key), reading directly from the DiscussionsConfiguration model. It then writes the result into CourseAppStatus via update_status_for_course_app().

The Pages & Resources MFE calls GET /api/course_apps/v1/apps/{course_id}. The serializer first checks CourseAppStatus (bulk-loaded via get_all_app_status_data_for_course). If no row exists, it falls back to is_course_app_enabled(), which tries CourseAppStatus.objects.get(course_key, app_id) and returns its enabled value if found, otherwise calls DiscussionCourseApp.is_enabled() which reads from DiscussionsConfiguration.is_enabled().

Locally, this was working because CELERY_ALWAYS_EAGER=True. However, in production with Celery workers, update_discussions_settings_from_course_task is triggered after update_course_apps_status due to the COURSE_PUBLISH_TASK_DELAY. As a result, update_course_apps_status ends up using stale values from DiscussionsConfiguration, so the data doesn’t get synced as expected.

I have added the code here. We have 2 scenarios:

New course: No CourseAppStatus row exists yet. The handler creates one with the correct enabled value.
Old course: A CourseAppStatus row already exists (created by update_course_apps_status on a previous publish, or by initialize_course_app_status on first MFE page load). The handler updates it.