Perspective gets stuck after selecting Fleet management -- cannot switch away

[galkremer1]

Bug

After selecting the Fleet management perspective (or any plugin-registered perspective), the perspective becomes stuck and can no longer be changed via the perspective switcher.

Root Cause

Two issues in frontend/packages/console-app/src/components/detect-perspective/:

1. Hardcoded ACM default in useValuesForPerspectiveContext.ts

const acmPerspectiveExtension = usePerspectiveExtension(ACM_PERSPECTIVE_ID); // 'acm'
const existingPerspective = activePerspective || latestPerspective;
const perspective =
    !!acmPerspectiveExtension && !existingPerspective
      ? ACM_PERSPECTIVE_ID
      : existingPerspective || '';

If existingPerspective is momentarily empty during a perspective switch (e.g. async useLastPerspective loading), Console silently defaults back to acm instead of allowing the switch to complete. Console should not hardcode a preference for any specific plugin perspective.

2. setPerspective causes split-render between context and router

setPerspective updates two independent React contexts in one call:

setActivePerspective(newPerspective);  // PerspectiveContext update
navigate(next || '/');                  // RouterContext update

These may commit in separate render cycles. Plugins using both useActivePerspective() and useLocation() can observe a render where the perspective has changed but the pathname has not, triggering perspective-forcing logic that overrides the user's switch.

3. location dependency in DetectPerspective effect fires too often after react-router migration

After CONSOLE-5114 migrated from react-router-dom-v5-compat to react-router, the location object in DetectPerspective's effect is a new reference on every navigation, causing the ?perspective= URL param check to re-run more frequently. Combined with PR #15736 passing createPath(location) (full URL including ?perspective=) as the navigation target, a stale ?perspective= param can force the perspective back.

Side Effects on Plugins

Plugins that register perspectives with async feature flags face a trilemma -- all three options are broken:

1. required flag on perspective → infinite loading spinner (flag undefined until async call completes)
2. disallowed flag on perspective + perspective on routes → page reload loop (setPerspective → navigate(landingPage) → redirect loop)
3. disallowed flag + no perspective on routes → stuck perspective (plugin's perspective-sync hook fights the user's switch due to the split-render issue above)

Plugins should be able to register perspective-scoped routes with async flags without hitting any of these failure modes.

Environment

• OpenShift Console: release-4.22
• ACM/MCE: stolostron/console main branch
• Reproduces when any plugin registers a perspective with disallowed flag gating

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install ACM/MCE (or any plugin that registers a perspective)
2. Switch to the Fleet management perspective
3. Try to switch to Administrator or Developer perspective
4. Perspective snaps back to Fleet management

[galkremer1]

Console 4.21 - Working as expected:

Console-4.21.mov

Console 4.22 - Stuck in fleet management perspective :

console-4.22.mov