cakephp ACL creates ARO but lft and rght values are null

Question

Using CakePHP 2.2.3 I'm nearly finished with my project and now going back through to setup authorization.

I'm implementing ACL, truncated both the users and groups tables for a fresh start, ran the command to recreate the aco/aro/aros_acos tables and have followed the tutorial.

When I create a group, it creates a corresponding ARO entry but the lft, and rght fields are NULL. I commented out all of my other code in the users/groups models and controllers to try to narrow it down, but it doesn't seem to help.

I will post my code below, with comments and validations removed for the sake of space.

group model:

App::uses('AppModel', 'Model');

class Group extends AppModel {
public $actsAs = array('Acl' => array('type' => 'requester'));

public function parentNode() {
    return null;
}

public $hasMany = array(
    'User' => array(
        'className' => 'User',
        'foreignKey' => 'group_id',
        'dependent' => false,
        'conditions' => '',
        'fields' => '',
        'order' => '',
        'limit' => '',
        'offset' => '',
        'exclusive' => '',
        'finderQuery' => '',
        'counterQuery' => ''
    )
);
}

User model:

App::uses('AppModel', 'Model');
App::uses('AuthComponent', 'Controller/Component');
class User extends AppModel {
//setup ACL settings and function
public $actsAs = array('Acl' => array('type' => 'requester'));

public function parentNode() {
    if (!$this->id && empty($this->data)) {
        return null;
    }
    if (isset($this->data['User']['group_id'])) {
        $groupId = $this->data['User']['group_id'];
    } else {
        $groupId = $this->field('group_id');
    }
    if (!$groupId) {
        return null;
    } else {
        return array('Group' => array('id' => $groupId));
    }
} // end parentNode()

public function beforeSave($options = array()) {
if (isset($this->data[$this->alias]['password'])) {
    $this->data[$this->alias]['password'] = AuthComponent::password($this->data[$this->alias]['password']);
}
return true;
}

AppController:

App::uses('Controller', 'Controller');
class AppController extends Controller {

public $components = array(
    //'Security',
            'Acl',
    'Auth' => array(
        'authorize' => array(
                        'Actions' => array('actionPath' => 'controllers')
                            )/*,
        'authenticate' => array(
            'Form' => array(
                'scope' => array('User.activated' => 1 )
                )
            ) */
        ),
    'Session'
 ); 
public $helpers = array(
    'Html',
    'Text',
    'Session',
    'Form'
); 

 /* public function isAuthorized($user = null) {
    return true;
 } */

public function beforeFilter(){

$this->Auth->loginRedirect = array('controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'index' );
    $this->Auth->logoutRedirect = array('controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'index');
    $this->Auth->authError = 'You are not allowed to see that.';
 }

I even did an ACL implementation on a fresh install of cakephp 2.4.6, and everything works great. I have the projects side by side for comparison but can't find a difference in my ACL setup

Why aren't my lft and rght fields being set in my ARO table?

Answer 1

Short Answer: Remove MVC files associated with ACL tables.

Less Short Answer: I setup ACL on a fresh install of cake 2.2.3, and everything worked great. Overwrote my code from my user and group models and controllers as well as AppController, and still no go.

I've seen a similar situation when I forget to add $actsAs = array('Tree'); to a model.

I realized I baked controllers/models/views for all ACL tables. DOH! (look for aroscontroller, acoscontroller, etc.)

I removed all the MVC files for these tables and it works great now.

This isn't a typical issue since normally one would add ACL schema after baking, but I started with a database I used on another project and forgot to remove the tables.

I really hope my stupidity helps someone else in this situation.