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Forum Discussion
Search_v2 API Changes
Hi folks, I just wanted to give some feedback regarding the new search_v2 API, which came as a bit of surprise to me. Firstly it seems that the creation of this new API was not announced, at ...
Good news, the team has finished reviewing this and has decided to extend this, bringing the retirement date for /files/search to October 28. Hope this helps!
Greg-DB
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffThanks for the additional information and feedback.
Also, when you say you "do not control their application access", do you mean that they each register their own Dropbox API app and that you do not know the relevant app key for each one? I ask because any extensions would be granted by app key, so that would complicate granting those if so. I'll highlight this with the team in that case.
And, yes, we do now only support creating new API apps as scoped apps (as scoped apps can access all of the same functionality as non-scoped apps). I see you opened a new thread on the scopes parameter behavior in particular though so I'll follow up with you there regarding that.
Hi Greg,
Yes - that is correct. We develop an Open Source learning management system (Moodle). Anyone is free to download Moodle from our website/github, install it on their own server with their own domain and under their own control, and use it. We do have a SaaS offering, but the vast majority of our installations is people hosting their own sites (or paying someone else to).
We have a number of repository integrations, one of which is Dropbox. This allows students and teachers to uploadcontent from their own Dropbox account into Moodle. One example of this is a student who has completed written coursework submitting this for assessment.
Because each installation of Moodle can have its own DNS, its own hosting, etc. they must register their own Dropbox developer account, get their own developer key/secret, and provide their own OAuth2 callbacks which match their hosting/DNS. Moodle is unable to do this for them (even if we wanted to) because of the OAuth2 callback requirement and the fact that the sites control their hostname.
In addition, the administrator of each installation of Moodle site can choose what version to run, when to upgrade, etc. We have little-to-no control over when administrators do this. Moodle is used widely across the world so the academic year is about to start in the Southern Hemisphere (Feb - Dec), whilst in the Northern hemisphere we're half-way through the year (Sept - July). Many users will only upgrade outside of term times, and some will only upgrade between academic years.
We may be able to request extensions for the small number of sites that we do control, but the vast majority of our users manage their own integrations.
As I say, our next scheduled release of Moodle is on the 8th March, which is after the v1 search API has been retired, so unless users patch their installations between releases (unlikely for most), this change will break dropbox usage for existing installations for at least a week, but likely longer as many sites will not want to upgrade until their Easter break in April. Online learning is too important for many of these users to 'risk' an upgrade during term time, with so many of their students being home schooled due to Covid.
I hope this helps explain my concerns,
Andrew
- Greg-DB
I see, thanks! That's helpful context.
Hi Greg-DB ,
I'm just wanting to confirm that you have now, indeed, canned the perfectly valid search API in favour of the problematic search_v2 API as announced? The end date you announced was 28th February and that date has now passed.
I'm very disappointed by the lack of meaningful response to the concerns that I have raised regarding the timeframe of this change.
Best wishes,
Andrew
- Greg-DB
andrewnicols Thanks for the note. We have not actually yet retired the /2/files/search endpoint. The team is checking the usage and reviewing the feedback such as yours and may decide to extend this. I'll let you know when I have an official update on that.
