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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-31T20:05:03+00:00

I’m having fun with a change to a content type field (from a node

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I’m having fun with a change to a content type field (from a node reference to a text field) which results in an error when a recreated feature is merged. The error is

FieldException: Cannot change an existing field's type. in field_update_field() (line 234 of /var/www/htdocs/modulesfieldfield.crud.inc)

At the moment, this is only affecting a merge back into a developer’s workspace and the staging environment is a clean build from GIT, so unaffected. But it raises an early flag in terms of defining an update process when it goes to production.

When in production, I assume that it will be a matter of managing an export of each instance of that content type, remove the content type, install the recreated feature, migrate the exported data into the refactored content type and then apply any tests that may be defined for that change.

What is the recommended best practice process, i.e. the standard to follow to get it right at the outset?

Many thanks in advance

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Best way is to tag your feature with a version.

    • First version: your old field and it’s data
    • Second version: your old field definition and the new one.
      In this version you can migrate the data contained in the old field within a hook_update_N().
    • Third version: simply remove old field definition

    I hope to have answered your question as you expected

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