Draft documents don't get saved to db when using the autosave option

[ollebergkvist]

Bug Report

When using the autosave option for drafts, field data are not saved to the db.
If you however use the manual save config option (i.e drafts: true), which generates a "save draft" button that the
user manually has to click, data is saved to the db as expected.

Expected Behavior

Draft document fields should be saved to db when autosave is enabled.

Current Behavior

Field values are not saved to the db, empty fields.

https://jmp.sh/b6U7Wz8

Possible Solution

Steps to Reproduce

1. Add this collection to payload and import to config: https://github.com/payloadcms/payload/blob/master/test/versions/collections/Autosave.ts
2. Try to create a doc to this collection via the UI
3. Wait for the autosave function to trigger
4. Check the doc in your db manager
5. Fields will be empty

Detailed Description

System:
OS: macOS 12.5.1
CPU: (6) x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8500B CPU @ 3.00GHz
Memory: 163.45 MB / 32.00 GB
Shell: 5.8.1 - /bin/zsh
Binaries:
Node: 14.18.3 - ~/.asdf/installs/nodejs/14.18.3/bin/node
Yarn: 1.22.10 - /usr/local/bin/yarn
npm: 6.14.15 - ~/.asdf/plugins/nodejs/shims/npm
Browsers:
Chrome: 104.0.5112.101
Firefox: 103.0.2
Safari: 15.6.1
Packages:
Payload: ^1.0.27

[jmikrut]

Hey @ollebergkvist — this is actually working as intended. With Autosave, as soon as you click "create new", a blank document is created because we need the ID to point autosave versions against. As you work, an autosave version will be saved to the _collectionSlug_versions collection, and that will be kept updated. It is only when you publish your changes that the autosaved changes will appear in the main collectionSlug collection.

With Autosave enabled, there is no way for Payload to know when you are ready to save changes to your "main" document in the main collection. Rather, we just create a blank one, and then store all autosaved changes to the _versions collection.

Does this make sense? I'm going to bump this one to a Discussion so we can keep the conversation going. There could be ways to improve this, but at first pass, this is operating as intended. When you click publish, your changes will be copied from the _versions collection straight to the parent document as intended.

Thoughts?