missing keyword: :coder If no default coder is configured, a coder must be provided to serialize. rails 7

[santosh-1987]

[jeffcovey]

This is holding us back from upgrading to Rails 7.1. Does anyone have a solution?

[0q2]

How did this pass testing?

[MyklClason]

Docs: https://api.rubyonrails.org/v7.1.2/classes/ActiveRecord/AttributeMethods/Serialization/ClassMethods.html

public_activity/lib/public_activity/orm/active_record/activity.rb

Line 42 in 5f1c429

serialize :parameters, Hash unless %i[json jsonb hstore].include?(columns_hash['parameters'].type)

Looks like it needs to be changed to something like (default coder was previously YAML)

serialize :parameters, coder: YAML, type: Hash unless %i[json jsonb hstore].include?(columns_hash['parameters'].type)

[crustyratfink]

Running into this. Could use some enlightenment on the cause and any workarounds that might deal with it? Thanks!

[MyklClason]

@crustyratfink PR seems to be in the works (#384), but if I'm reading the code right, there should be a way to add "parameters" as a column type and override this. So perhaps if you include this line of code in the model, it might work. I don't think I actually use this gem (I work on a number of projects with clients, and some of those include Heroku stack upgrades that require resolving issues like this); I just came across it with the same error I was getting, and passed the fix along so others could handle it.

serialize :parameters, coder: YAML, type: Hash unless %i[json jsonb hstore].include?(columns_hash['parameters'].type)

[samy-at-shopify]

+1 to this, its holding us back from bumping to 7.1.
The PR @MyklClason linked to seems like a simple and straightforward fix. @ur5us could you please give it a look?

[ur5us]

@0q2

How did this pass testing?

If you take a closer look at https://github.com/public-activity/public_activity#rails-7 you’ll notice the following:

As of version 2.0.0, public_activity also supports Rails up to 7.0.

So in the current release Rails 7.1 is only partially supported in that one has to either monkey patch PublicActivity::Activity or set a default coder. The latter or rather the lack of a default coder config in Rails 7.1 results in the breaking change leading up to this issue here. I’ve fixed the issue weeks ago but haven’t found the time to cut a release yet. I’ll do that shortly.

[ur5us]

@santosh-1987 @jeffcovey @MyklClason @samy-at-shopify I’ve implemented the same fix as provided in #384 weeks ago but initially that broke a few tests and rightly so! As it stands, I’ll have to reject the PR. The issue is that it only works with Rails 7.1+ but our support matrix is much wider than that. Thankfully, it’s straight forward to make it work of < 7.1. I’ll push the code soon and try to cut a release by the end of the week.

In the meantime, you have the following 2 options, though I haven’t tried either of them:

1. define a default (as in app-wide) coder, i.e. in your application.rb add:

     config.active_record.default_column_serializer = YAML
     # PublicActivity#parameters serialisation
     config.active_record.yaml_column_permitted_classes = […]

   Full details and considerations: https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/v7.1.2/activerecord/CHANGELOG.md?plain=1#L995
2. monkey patch PublicActivity::Activity in an initializer (e.g. config/initializers/public_activity_defaults.rb) to provide the missing coder: YAML option:

     Rails.application.reloader.to_prepare do
       PublicActivity::Activity.class_eval do
         serialize :parameters,
                          type: Hash,
                          coder: YAML,
                          yaml: { permitted_classes: […] }
       end
     end

I had to permit the following classes for one of my apps but YMMV:
- ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone
- ActiveSupport::TimeZone
- BigDecimal
- Date
- Symbol
- Time

Alternatively, you can just wait a few more days for the next release as mentioned above.

[ur5us]

@santosh-1987 @jeffcovey @MyklClason @samy-at-shopify I was wrong about the compatibility, s. my comment. @MyklClason you were right.

[dorianmariecom]

For those ending up here that have the same issue with rpush for instance, doing:

config.active_record.default_column_serializer = JSON

in config/application.rb fixes this error

[onlinegrave]

If your column need json serializer

class Example < ApplicationRecord
  class_attribute :default_column_serializer, instance_accessor: false, default: ::ActiveRecord::Coders::JSON
 end

This will also fix rpush serializer issue in rails > 7 with ruby > 3