afterCopy plugin only fires if beforeCopy affects param

Question

There is an issue with Magento 2.2.2 (and possibly previous versions) where products that have a url_path set on them cannot be duplicated - "The value specified in the URL Key field would generate a URL that already exists." For us these came from migrated products, but this is just background for my current problem.

To get around the issue, I added an afterCopy plugin to clear url_path from the duplicated product. However, it would not fire, and after debugging I decided to just add a beforeCopy to clear it from the product prior to copying. This resulted in both before and after methods running. Some more experimentation and without the $product->setUrlPath(null); call it will not run the afterCopy method.

<?php

namespace My\Namespace\Model\Plugin;

class CopierPlugin
{
    public function afterCopy(\Magento\Catalog\Model\Product\Copier $subject, $duplicate)
    {
        $duplicate->setUrlPath(null);
        return $duplicate;
    }

    public function beforeCopy(\Magento\Catalog\Model\Product\Copier $subject, \Magento\Catalog\Model\Product $product)
    {
        $product->setUrlPath(null); // without this line, the afterCopy will not fire
        return [$product];
    }
}

Has anyone else seem similar behavior with plugins? I don't have time to delve further into the depths of how Magento determines to run specific plugin methods at the moment, but if I get some more time I may dig in further.

Answer 1

If you take a look at the class \Magento\Catalog\Model\Product\Copier the method copy is trying to save the save the duplicated item $duplicate->save() some exception is being thrown somewhere and the processes is not being completed, that's why afterCopy is never being called.