Cms: Adding a new field to category - yii\base\Exception (Invalid field handle) from categories with level = 0

[ricricucit]

Description

I need to create a new field (simple _light switch_), and assign it to a Category.
Everything works fine, until I enter a parent (level 0) category from the admin and I get this:

---

What I have:

• about 10 categories.
• 6 of these are nested into another one.

Steps to reproduce

1. Make sure you have the setup as described above.
2. Create the field (type: lightswitch): OK
3. Assign it to the tab of the category: OK
4. Now you want to go inside a Category and change the lightswitch (eg. from OFF to ON)
5. If I go to one of the nested categories: OK, I can see the light switch and modify its value
6. if I go to any of the "parent" (level 0) categories I get the error Invalid field handle: (with the handle name I've set)

Additional info

• Craft version: 3.0.26.1 (latest at the moment of writing)
• PHP version: 7.1.17
• Database driver & version: pdo_mysql - mysqlnd 5.0.12-dev - 20150407
• Plugins & versions:
  
  
  
  • Amazon S3 (1.0.8 - latest at moment of writing)
  
  
  • Redactor (2.1.6 - latest at moment of writing)
  
  
  • Schematic (4.0.17) - latest at moment of writing
  
  

Tests

• I've only tried exporting and re-importing the schema with Schematic, to se if something would get triggered by it...same error

Additional notes

• I have a custom docker setup, so I could easily run tests based on other environments.
• I'd like to have hints on what I could try (even if it's about modifying the core of craft and do a PR, it's good!)
• I'm available for anyone looking for more info

Thank you for you help.

[brandonkelly]

Hm, strange. Do you have any other fields with a similar handle (perhaps with different casing)?

Can you try deleting your storage/runtime/compiled_classes folder and see if that helps?

[ricricucit]

I've already tried changing to other names, but I've tried again with the name testingSomething: same result.
I've now deleted the folder: same result.

Now I see this, in the $fieldHandles array note the testingSomething:

...
        'subTitle' => true,
        'subTitle1' => true,
        'subTitle2' => true,
        'tags' => true,
        'template' => true,
        'termsConditions' => true,
        'testingSomething' => true,
        'textColor' => true,
        'title1' => true,
...

Any additional hint is more than welcome. 👋

[brandonkelly]

I’m not really sure what else to check off the top of my head. Any chance you can zip up your site and send it to [email protected], along with a database backup?

[lxcodes]

I'm actually experiencing this same issue. Only way I could solve it was to delete the category from the system and create it new with the fields required. This is happening on a normal PHP composer install on a staging server.

I can't speak to nested categories though as ours are only a single level.

[ricricucit]

Turns out this was due to different FieldLayout IDs in the DB.
Can't really say if it was a Craft's issue or our own environment problem. Sorry...

[lxcodes]

This is still an issue for me. I don't know if it's FieldLayout IDs mismatching, but once it happens, I still have to recreate the entire category.

[brandonkelly]

@lxcodes Next time it happens, please zip up your site and send it to us at [email protected], along with a database backup.

[onemoreahmad]

I have the same issue, when I added the field to the section on the local env worked fine, but when I did the same on production got the same error.

@ricricucit what do you mean by a different FieldLayout IDs, please ?

[ricricucit]

You can have different "field layouts" defining how fields are displayed in the Control Panel, when editing the Category (or any other entry type). These different representations are stored in the database and each of these representations have their own FieldLayout ID.

For some reason, I've noticed that the "FieldLayout ID" that was assigned to those "broken Categories", was different from the FieldLayout ID that other "working categories" had.

Manually setting the same FieldLayout ID of "working categories" to the FieldLayout ID of the "broken categories", solved my problem.

[onemoreahmad]

Clear, thanks a lot for clarify that.

[jerome2710]

I was having the exact same problem, the solution of @ricricucit works:

• Editing an existing category triggers the error.
• Creating a new temporarily category works, remember the newly created category ID, retrieved from the URL.
• Find the category in the craft_elements table, searching for the ID and retrieve the field layout-ID.
• Replace the field layout-IDs for every messed up category-element with the working field layout-ID.
• Now they should all work and you may delete the temporarily category.

Still curious how this happens.. The incorrect field layout contains fields which should belong to an entry instead of my category. I am wondering where this gets mixed up. Removing all fields and tabs from the category and re-adding the fields does not fix this either.

---

I am using the latest version of Craft (Craft Pro 3.0.36) with PHP 7.2.11. The problem exists on multiple Docker-environments as well as our staging & production environments.