From 6011a500423547be94323d01d3820bbb82b528e1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: TheFlow <theflow@sydigital.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:31:19 +1300
Subject: [PATCH] fix(submissions): remove User model populate calls

- User is also a native MongoDB class, not Mongoose model
- Removed all .populate() calls for createdBy, lastUpdatedBy, notes.author
- These were causing MissingSchemaError for User model
- Submissions can be returned without populated user data
---
 src/controllers/submissions.controller.js | 14 ++++----------
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/controllers/submissions.controller.js b/src/controllers/submissions.controller.js
index 5a7421a8..75544092 100644
--- a/src/controllers/submissions.controller.js
+++ b/src/controllers/submissions.controller.js
@@ -81,10 +81,9 @@ async function getSubmissions(req, res) {
     if (status) query.status = status;
     if (publicationId) query.publicationId = publicationId;
 
-    // NOTE: BlogPost is a native MongoDB class, not a Mongoose model,
-    // so we can't use .populate() for blogPostId. Fetch blog post data separately if needed.
+    // NOTE: BlogPost and User are native MongoDB classes, not Mongoose models,
+    // so we can't use .populate() for them. Fetch data separately if needed.
     const submissions = await SubmissionTracking.find(query)
-      .populate('createdBy', 'email')
       .sort({ submittedAt: -1, createdAt: -1 })
       .limit(parseInt(limit, 10))
       .skip(parseInt(offset, 10));
@@ -137,10 +136,7 @@ async function getSubmissionById(req, res) {
   try {
     const { id } = req.params;
 
-    const submission = await SubmissionTracking.findById(id)
-      .populate('createdBy', 'email')
-      .populate('lastUpdatedBy', 'email')
-      .populate('notes.author', 'email');
+    const submission = await SubmissionTracking.findById(id);
 
     if (!submission) {
       return res.status(404).json({
@@ -318,9 +314,7 @@ async function getSubmissionByBlogPost(req, res) {
   try {
     const { blogPostId } = req.params;
 
-    const submission = await SubmissionTracking.findOne({ blogPostId })
-      .populate('createdBy', 'email')
-      .populate('lastUpdatedBy', 'email');
+    const submission = await SubmissionTracking.findOne({ blogPostId });
 
     if (!submission) {
       return res.status(404).json({