https://logstash.wikimedia.org/goto/5a45a4cc40916467a0019cec5c6b1edc

[WouyEQpAAD8AAFI8KFwAAAAY] [no req]   BadMethodCallException from line 176 of /srv/mediawiki/php-1.31.0-wmf.21/extensions/CentralAuth/includes/LocalRenameJob/LocalRenameUserJob.php: Call to a member function getNamespace() on a non-object (null)
#0 /srv/mediawiki/php-1.31.0-wmf.21/extensions/CentralAuth/includes/LocalRenameJob/LocalRenameUserJob.php(105): LocalRenameUserJob->movePages(User)
#1 /srv/mediawiki/php-1.31.0-wmf.21/extensions/CentralAuth/includes/LocalRenameJob/LocalRenameJob.php(63): LocalRenameUserJob->doRun(string)
#2 /srv/mediawiki/php-1.31.0-wmf.21/includes/jobqueue/JobRunner.php(294): LocalRenameJob->run()
#3 /srv/mediawiki/php-1.31.0-wmf.21/includes/jobqueue/JobRunner.php(193): JobRunner->executeJob(LocalRenameUserJob, Wikimedia\Rdbms\LBFactoryMulti, BufferingStatsdDataFactory, integer)
#4 /srv/mediawiki/rpc/RunJobs.php(47): JobRunner->run(array)
#5 {main}

The failure here is caused by the $ in the username not being handled correctly in a preg_replace call in LocalRenameUserJob.

$ mwscript eval.php --wiki=enwiki
> $to = 'Drytime%$1600';
> $toTitle = Title::makeTitleSafe( NS_USER, $to );
> echo $toTitle->getDBkey();
Drytime%$1600
> echo preg_replace( '!^[^/]+!', $toTitle->getDBkey(), 'SimonFoundationContinence' );
Drytime%00
> $newPage = Title::makeTitleSafe( NS_USER, 'Drytime%00' );

> var_dump($newPage);
NULL
> MediaWiki\MediaWikiServices::getInstance()->getTitleParser()->parseTitle( 'Drytime%00', NS_USER );
Caught exception MalformedTitleException: The requested page title contains invalid characters: "%00".
#0 /srv/mediawiki/php-1.31.0-wmf.22/includes/title/MediaWikiTitleCodec.php(156): MediaWikiTitleCodec->splitTitleString('Drytime%00', 2)
#1 /srv/mediawiki/php-1.31.0-wmf.22/maintenance/eval.php(78) : eval()'d code(1): MediaWikiTitleCodec->parseTitle('Drytime%00', 2)
#2 /srv/mediawiki/php-1.31.0-wmf.22/maintenance/eval.php(78): eval()
#3 /srv/mediawiki/multiversion/MWScript.php(100): require_once('/srv/mediawiki/...')
#4 {main}

The problem is that $16 is treated as a backreference in preg_replace.

replacement may contain references of the form \\n or $n, with the latter form being the preferred one. Every such reference will be replaced by the text captured by the n'th parenthesized pattern. n can be from 0 to 99, and \\0 or $0 refers to the text matched by the whole pattern. Opening parentheses are counted from left to right (starting from 1) to obtain the number of the capturing subpattern. To use backslash in replacement, it must be doubled ("\\\\" PHP string). — https://secure.php.net/preg_replace

Escaping the $ when used in preg_replace should fix the problem:

php > echo preg_replace( '!^[^/]+!', 'Drytime%\$1600', 'SimonFoundationContinence' );
Drytime%$1600

Change 414117 had a related patch set uploaded (by BryanDavis; owner: Bryan Davis):
[mediawiki/extensions/CentralAuth@master] LocalRenameUserJob: escape '$' in replacement title

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/414117

So once that fix is merged (and maybe backported) can we run the fixStuckGlobalRename.php script safely so the rename is performed? Thanks.

A bit of discussion led to noticing that we also need to escape \ (e.g. https://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth/VeryU%5CniqueAccount)

Change 414117 merged by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/extensions/CentralAuth@master] LocalRenameUserJob: escape backreferences in replacement title

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/414117

Can we cherry-pick this to the current wmf branch? If we wait for the train we won't be able to do this until all group0,1,2 wikis are using it; unless that's not a problem? Thanks.

Change 414972 had a related patch set uploaded (by MarcoAurelio; owner: Bryan Davis):
[mediawiki/extensions/CentralAuth@wmf/1.31.0-wmf.22] LocalRenameUserJob: escape backreferences in replacement title

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/414972

Change 414972 abandoned by MarcoAurelio:
LocalRenameUserJob: escape backreferences in replacement title

Reason:
I abandon this request.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/414972

Change 414972 restored by MarcoAurelio:
LocalRenameUserJob: escape backreferences in replacement title

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/414972

Change 414972 merged by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/extensions/CentralAuth@wmf/1.31.0-wmf.22] LocalRenameUserJob: escape backreferences in replacement title

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/414972

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2018-02-28T00:03:00Z] <thcipriani@tin> Synchronized php-1.31.0-wmf.22/extensions/CentralAuth/includes/LocalRenameJob/LocalRenameUserJob.php: [[gerrit:414972|LocalRenameUserJob: escape backreferences in replacement title]] T188171 (duration: 01m 13s)

The cherry-pick from above has been merged and @thcipriani deployed it and ran mwscript extensions/CentralAuth/maintenance/fixStuckGlobalRename.php --wiki=enwiki --logwiki=metawiki 'SimonFoundationContinence' 'Drytime%$1600' and the rename worked. However https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth/Drytime%$1600 gives Error 400

400 Bad Request
nginx/1.13.6

I don't know what Logstash might have kept for the error as I don't have access to it. Either what it causes the error there or we revert the rename and blacklist those weird characters. Your call :)

The CentralAuth link works with &target= parameter though. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ACentralAuth&target=Drytime%25%241600

If the $ and % characters are converted, the page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth/Drytime%25%241600 also works well.

As you can see, the accounts have been left unnatached after the rename. @Legoktm Could you please look into this?

Thanks.

In T188171#4008780, @MarcoAurelio wrote:

As you can see, the accounts have been left unnatached after the rename. @Legoktm Could you please look into this?

These accounts are actually attached, but their lu_attached_method is not set so they look weird in the list. I fixed this by running:

wikiadmin@db1062(centralauth)>update localuser set lu_attached_method='login' where lu_name = 'Drytime%$1600' and lu_attached_method is null;
Query OK, 3 rows affected (0.01 sec)
Rows matched: 3  Changed: 3  Warnings: 0

Follow-up for the attachment method issue: T188882: Attachment method should be preserved through global rename