Major 2.1.3 regression bug breaks js translations, caused by overly aggressive performance optimizations of the static content deployment

[hostep]

Preconditions

1. Magento CE 2.1.3
2. PHP 7.0.14

Steps to reproduce

1. Install Magento CE 2.1.3 using composer
2. Install a couple of language packs (for example one for nl_NL and fr_FR)
3. Setup multiple storeviews, each one in a different language
4. Put your store in production mode (I used the --skip-compilation flag)
5. Run setup:static-content:deploy --theme=Magento/luma en_US nl_NL fr_FR
6. Go to each storeview in the frontend and go to the 'create an account' page
7. Don't fill in the fields, just press the 'Create an Account' button

Expected result

1. The warnings about the required fields are translated on each different storeview in its own language

Actual result

1. The warnings about the required fields on all different storeviews are all in English (the first language of the setup:static-content:deploy command)

Discussion

Magento 2.1.3 has optimized the static content deployment so it only generates the content for the first language and then blindly copies that directory to the other requested locales.
This is really great, because 99% of the files in those directories are always the same.
Except for the javascript translations...
And now we have this problem caused by this optimization.

More info

In Magento 2.1.2, if I take a diff of the nl_NL & fr_FR directories, I see 4 files which differ:

....pub/static/frontend/Vendor/theme $ diff -rwq nl_NL fr_FR
Files nl_NL/css/email-inline.css and fr_FR/css/email-inline.css differ
Files nl_NL/css/email.css and fr_FR/css/email.css differ
Files nl_NL/css/styles-m.css and fr_FR/css/styles-m.css differ
Files nl_NL/js-translation.json and fr_FR/js-translation.json differ

I'm not sure if the changes in the email css files are important, the changes in the styles-m.css files only differ by the order in which they are defined (which is weird, but whatever), but the most important file is that js-translation.json file.

Workaround

You can work around this bug by executing the setup:static-content:deploy command for every language separately:

php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy --theme=Magento/luma en_US
php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy --theme=Magento/luma nl_NL
php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy --theme=Magento/luma fr_FR

But this means you can't depend on the performance optimization which runs these processes in parallel, which was introduced in 2.1.1.

@ Magento team: seriously, can you actually test stuff before releasing them into a new version? We aren't waiting on new "performance optimization" features, we just want bug fixes for now, not new features with new bugs.

@woosley-mg @benmarks: I expect this major bug the be resolved in maximum 2 weeks (or let's make it 3 due to the upcoming holidays). Thank you!

[Ctucker9233]

@hostep I think their testing procedures are broken. Just going by TravisCI, even pull requests always fail with the same error. I'm of the opinion that this error is hiding a lot of other major errors. @woosley-mg @benmarks can version 2.1.4 be completely clean please?

[petterkj]

2.1.3. Also happens in backend. Confirmed. I noticed this also. I had to disable static versioning in Admin Configuration Development, else "translations-nb.js" was not loading. I got the error when I tried to list products in admin - empty result and stops at loading spinner because the translation JS file was not found.

[hostep]

@petterkj: sorry, but your issue has nothing to do with what I describe above. In my case the js-translation.json file is getting created but contains the wrong translations.
Your issue is more related to this one I think: #7869

[sichensol]

Another issue with this optimization is that when you did all steps as it described in install guide, the js and css don't work. Magento 2.1.3 looking for it in some strange location for example http://magento2ce.loc/pub/static/version1482322390/adminhtml/Magento/backend/en_US/requirejs/require.js. Why it 'version1482322390' path is appeared in my url? I do not have it directory, so, js and css could not work.

[hostep]

@molneek: this again has nothing to do with what I describe above.

What you now experience is that Magento has switched the static signing of assets to on by default now.
See the release notes: http://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.1/release-notes/ReleaseNotes2.1.3CE.html:

Versioning of static files (including CSS, JS, font, and image files) is now enabled by default.

You can disable this in the backend under Advanced => Developer => Sign Static Files

[sichensol]

@hostep Thanks, but who can explain why it versioning was necessary enabled by default?
The

Versioning of static files (including CSS, JS, font, and image files) is now enabled by default.

is located in middle of release notes. After install new version I expect that all previous features work as well as before but every time I get new issues and should looking for solutions for fix this instead of do my work.

[unfunco]

@Ctucker9233 See tweet stream here: https://twitter.com/tonypiper/status/809328942968664064 – also, the semantic version was increased to say BC, but the notes said no BC. They have confirmed the bug (affecting Travis) is in test and not in M2 code, but you're right, it could be hiding all sorts of other nasties.

[shiftedreality]

Hi @hostep

Thanks for reporting.
We've created internal ticket MAGETWO-62660 to investigate and fix this issue.