cakephp ACL creates ARO but lft and rght values are null - cakephp

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.