CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Until 2 days ago we had been running 4.2 since its release.

We had a custom field with db length 10.  This was included in a profile on a semi-public contribution page.  Unbeknownst to me, some people were actually entering more than 10 characters into the field, but it was just being truncated when it was saved and the contributions were completing successfully.


Since updating to 4.4 however, if someone enters more than 10 characters the contribution fails with the error "Data too long for column ..." . The error message is OK - for this field I would prefer the previous behaviour of truncating rather than the contribution failing, but perhaps that isn't always appropriate, so I can't really complain.

Where it is all coming unstuck though is in solving the problem.

I edited the custom field through the UI and increased it's length to 50 - no improvement - the contribution page still works when I enter 10 or less characters but fails for more than 10 with the same error message.

I edited the profile reselecting the field and changing the field name before I saved so that there was actually a difference to save - no improvement.

I checked and the relevant table in the db ( civicrm_value_...) shows the field length as 50 for that column.

I cleared All caches in drupal and via administer>system settings >cleanup caches... in Civi. (Starting to get desperate now) Still no difference.

What's my next step?

Yes, we have logging on and yes the field length in the log_civicrm_value.. table is still set to 10 not 50. 

Turning logging off and then on again didn't help.

Can I change the field length manually in the table ( I can do that) or does some file have to be deleted and recreated (Eileen will have to do that for me)?

Success!  Thanks Lobo.

I understand that "Logging functionality is currently in beta."  and this is likely to be one of the reasons why.   

Can we put a warning somewhere on the edit custom fields form that says something like " if you are have logging enabled and want to change custom field length go  to this URL for more details."

Then have a page somewhere on the document wiki reminding them that logging is still in beta and explaining that changing the size of the field in the relevant log_civicrm_value  table needs to be done manually for now. ending with  "ask your implementer/developer to do it if you can't"