Sitefinity ASP.NET CMS - Content Management System

Problem Description

When you add a new meta field to a module, you will probably notice that it is not applied to your old items (i.e. items added before the meta field existed). You could set a value for this field for all of your items, but you will be able to use Sorting Expressions with the meta field only for the newly created items - the old items are excluded from the sorting list.

The problem occurs because in the sf_GCMetaData table where the metakeys are preserved as meta fields, the CntPrntID column is somehow saved with null value for the old items. The CntPrntID column is actually used to say to the meta field which is the parent of the content. In the Images & Documents for example, it would save the ID of the Library which holds the image or document.

Solution

You have to upload/create at least one item after adding the meta field. All items should be saved with Batch Update (for Libraries) or manually, so the new MetaField value will be stored in the database, otherwise there will be nothing to update with the script.
Then run the following script against your database:

update

sf_GCMetaData

set CntPrntID =

(

select distinct

CntPrntID

from

sf_GCMetaData as meta

where

meta.ContentID = sf_GCMetaData.ContentID

and meta.LangID = sf_GCMetaData.LangID

and meta.Application = sf_GCMetaData.Application

and meta.ContentID = sf_GCMetaData.ContentID

and meta.CntPrntID is not null

)

where

CntPrntID is null

It's a good practice to make a backup before database operations and we would recommend doing this.

The script will basically find CntPrntID value which is different than null and set it to any null fields of records that apply to the same module.