Magento2: Custom Customer attribute with input type multiselect is not saved in database Magento2.3.1

[aario]

Preconditions (*)

1. Magento 2.3.1
2. PHP 7.2

Steps to reproduce (*)

1. Create a customer custom attribute with input type multiselect int
2. Go to the backend and try to save some data to created attribute

Expected result (*)

All attributes should save

Actual result (*)

1. The new attribute appears in the form.
2. The row is created in customer_form_attribute table
3. Attribute still won't save and no error message even
   

   InstallData.php

<?php

namespace MyCompany\MyNewAttribute\Setup;

use Magento\Customer\Model\Customer;
use Magento\Eav\Setup\EavSetupFactory;
use Magento\Framework\Setup\InstallDataInterface;
use Magento\Framework\Setup\ModuleContextInterface;
use Magento\Framework\Setup\ModuleDataSetupInterface;
use MyCompany\MyNewAttribute\Model\Entity\Attribute\Source\MyNewAttribute;
use Magento\Customer\Setup\CustomerSetupFactory;
use Magento\Eav\Model\Config as EavConfig;

class InstallData implements InstallDataInterface
{
    /**
     * @var EavSetupFactory
     */
    protected $eavSetupFactory;

    /**
     * @var EavConfig
     */
    private $eavConfig;

    /**
     * @var CustomerSetupFactory
     */
    private $customerSetupFactory;

    /**
     *
     * @param EavSetupFactory $eavSetupFactory
     */
    public function __construct(
        EavSetupFactory $eavSetupFactory,
        EavConfig $eavConfig,
        CustomerSetupFactory $customerSetupFactory
    ) {
        $this->eavSetupFactory = $eavSetupFactory;
        $this->eavConfig = $eavConfig;
        $this->customerSetupFactory = $customerSetupFactory;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @param ModuleDataSetupInterface $setup
     * @param ModuleContextInterface $context
     */
    public function install(ModuleDataSetupInterface $setup, ModuleContextInterface $context)
    {
        $eavSetup = $this->eavSetupFactory->create(['setup' => $setup]);
        $eavSetup->addAttribute(
            Customer::ENTITY,
            'my_new_attribute',
            [
                'type' => 'int',
                'label' => 'My New Attribue',
                'input' => 'multiselect',
                'source' => MyNewAttribute::class,
                'required' => false,
            ]
        );

        $usedInForms = [
            'adminhtml_customer',
            'customer_account_create'
        ];

        $attribute = $this->eavConfig->getAttribute(Customer::ENTITY, 'my_new_attribute');
        $attribute->setData('used_in_forms', $usedInForms);
        $attribute->save();
    }
}

[m2-assistant[bot]]

Hi @aario. Thank you for your report.
To help us process this issue please make sure that you provided the following information:

• [ ] Summary of the issue
• [ ] Information on your environment
• [ ] Steps to reproduce
• [ ] Expected and actual results

Please make sure that the issue is reproducible on the vanilla Magento instance following Steps to reproduce. To deploy vanilla Magento instance on our environment, please, add a comment to the issue:

@magento-engcom-team give me 2.3-develop instance - upcoming 2.3.x release

For more details, please, review the Magento Contributor Assistant documentation.

@aario do you confirm that you was able to reproduce the issue on vanilla Magento instance following steps to reproduce?

• [ ] yes
• [ ] no

[m2-assistant[bot]]

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[ghost]

Hi @aario Thank you for your report.
The issue has been fixed in magento/magento2#20371 by @vivekkumarcedcoss in 2.3-develop branch
Related commit(s):

• ddb1137b96ff0ae93c2e78dff62e02da31f9a02a

The fix will be available with the upcoming 2.3.2 release.

[aario]

Please don't rush to close the issue. It's not multiline field. It's multiselect field here!
I manually applied fixed #20371 and it didn't fix the problem.
The problem happens in:
vendor/magento/framework/Api/AbstractExtensibleObject.php:setCustomAttribute
When it calls:
vendor/magento/framework/Api/AbstractExtensibleObject.php:getCustomAttributesCodes
And the new attribute is not among the results. Therefore gets ignored.
Please reopen my issue.

[ghost]

@aario, Sorry, I didn't see what it was multiselect, i'm will recheck, :+1:

[ghost]

@aario why your type is 'type' => 'int', ? and would be great if you add a you source class

[ghost]

@aario i'm not able to reproduce because you have wrong install script, you use int, type which is wrong, please use this example.

      $eavSetup->addAttribute(
            Customer::ENTITY,
            'my_new_attribute',
            [
                'type' => 'text',
                'label' => 'Allowed brands',
                'input' => 'multiselect',
                'required' => false,
                'visible' => true,
                'user_defined' => true,
                'sort_order' => 1000,
                'position' => 1000,
                'system' => 0,
                'backend' => 'Magento\Eav\Model\Entity\Attribute\Backend\ArrayBackend',
                'source' => 'Custom\QuoteAttr\Model\Entity\Attribute\Source\AllowedBrands'
            ]
        );

[aario]

But I am able to use a multiselect attribute as int. It has name and value. Name is string, value is the id of the option which source model returns. Therefore these IDs which are of type int will be saved in database. I was able to trace the code further:
The problem happens in:
vendor/magento/framework/Api/AbstractExtensibleObject.php:setCustomAttribute
When it calls:
vendor/magento/framework/Api/AbstractExtensibleObject.php:getCustomAttributesCodes
And the new attribute is not among the results. Therefore gets ignored. This function calls:
``` vendor/magento/framework/Api/AbstractExtensibleObject.php:getEavAttributesCodes
vendor/magento/module-customer/Model/Metadata/CachedMetadata.php:getCustomAttributesMetadata
vendor/magento/module-customer/Model/Metadata/CustomerMetadata.php:getCustomAttributesMetadata

My attribute has:

_data->system

Equal to:

true
```
Which makes it a system attribue, therefore not a custom one. Now checking to find out why it is marked as a system attribute.

[ghost]

@aario maybe you wants to use select attribute ?

    $eavSetup->addAttribute(
             \Magento\Catalog\Model\Product::ENTITY, 'brands', [
            'type' => 'int',
            'backend' => ''Magento\Eav\Model\Entity\Attribute\Backend\ArrayBackend',
            'frontend' => '',
            'label' => 'Brands',
            'input' => 'select',
            'group' => 'General',
            'class' => 'brands',
            'source' => 'Vendor\Module\Model\Brands\Values',
            'global' => \Magento\Eav\Model\Entity\Attribute\ScopedAttributeInterface::SCOPE_GLOBAL,
            'visible' =>    true,
            'required' => false,
            'user_defined' => false,
            'default' => '1',
            'searchable' => false,
            'filterable' => false,
            'comparable' => false,
            'visible_on_front' => false,
            'used_in_product_listing' => true,
            'unique' => false
                ]
    );

class Values extends \Magento\Eav\Model\Entity\Attribute\Source\AbstractSource
{

protected $optionFactory;


public function getAllOptions()
{

    $this->_options=[ ['label'=>'Select Options', 'value'=>''],
                      ['label'=>'Nike', 'value'=>'1'],
                      ['label'=>'Puma', 'value'=>'2'],
                      ['label'=>'Adidas', 'value'=>'3']
                     ];
    return $this->_options;
}


public function getOptionText($value)
{
    foreach ($this->getAllOptions() as $option) 
    {
        if ($option['value'] == $value) {
            return $option['label'];
        }
    }
    return false;
}


public function getFlatColumns()
{
    $attributeCode = $this->getAttribute()->getAttributeCode();
    return [
        $attributeCode => [
            'unsigned' => false,
            'default' => null,
            'extra' => null,
            'type' => Table::TYPE_INTEGER,
            'nullable' => true,
            'comment' => 'Custom Attribute Options  ' . $attributeCode . ' column',
        ],
    ];
}
}

[aario]

Solution

        $eavSetup->addAttribute(
            Customer::ENTITY,
            'my_new_attribue',
            [
                'type' => 'text',
                'label' => 'My New Attribue',
                'input' => 'multiselect',
                'source' => MyNewAttribute::class,
                'required' => false,
                'system' => false,
            ]
        );

Details

Attributes are by default system!

Attributes are by default marked as system in magento core in:

    Setup/EavSetup.php.Magento\Eav\Setup\EavSetup->addAttribute:825 
        Model/Entity/Setup/PropertyMapper/Composite.php.Magento\Eav\Model\Entity\Setup\PropertyMapper\Composite->map:56 
            Model/ResourceModel/Setup/PropertyMapper.php.Magento\Customer\Model\ResourceModel\Setup\PropertyMapper->map:26  

Where:

        return [
            'is_visible' => $this->_getValue($input, 'visible', 1),
            'is_system' => $this->_getValue($input, 'system', 1),
            .
            .
            .

checks if in the system exists in the array from the install script, otherwise assumes it as 1! This might be a bug. Later as the attribute is neither a system attribute nor considered as a custom one, none of core components of Magento takes care of saving its value! So the value is lost. Therefore one must add:

                'system' => false,

To make a custom attribute work. This also is not mentioned in the documentation here:
https://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.3/extension-dev-guide/attributes.html

@engcom-backlog-nazar Should the value be set to 0 by default, please reopen the bug so someone can make a pull request to change:

vendor/magento/module-customer/Model/ResourceModel/Setup/PropertyMapper.php:27

Type of a mutliselect must be text

Although a multiselect attribue might have varchar names and int values in its options variable in its source model class, magento core then saves it as a comma separated string value in database like:

1,3

Therefore the type should be text otherwise only the first selected one would be saved.