How to enable inactive fields

Question

I have a content type with a field that has been set to inactive. This happened after I reverted my feature in an attempt to undo a change I made to the content type.

The error message given is the following:

This content type has inactive fields. Inactive fields are not included in lists of available fields until their modules are enabled.

I've disabled and re-enabled the feature module, but the field is still inactive.

How can I activate my field?

Answer 1

I've had this quite a few times, I'm not sure what the initial problem is but I've solved it by doing either one of the following:

1. Disabling the feature and re-enabling it
2. If above fails disable delete content type then re-enable (not an option if there existing content on the site)
3. Manually editing the content_field_instance table (D6) and enabling it there.

Answer 2

Try: http://drupal.org/project/cck_manage_inactive.

Once you activate the module, the module will expose a new tab: "Manage inactive fields", on the content type administration page, usually: admin/content/node-type//fields-inactive.

It will allow you to completely remove, or re-activate the field(s).

Good luck!

Answer 3

Everything related to fields configurations is inside field_config table. All the following columns should be correct for field to appear in entity/content type fields list : active : must be 1
storage_type : sql_field_storage or an alternative
storage_module : sql_field_storage or an alternative
storage_active : must be 1
deleted : must be 0

Answer 4

"I fixed the problem by turning off ALL CCK modules and then turning them back on." http://drupal.org/node/883354

It seems that when I upgrade the core of Drupal, somehow the CCK modules where, automatically, activated before other modules that enable special field types.

Answer 5

This is a really old question but it was the one I kept finding whilst soul searching on Google.

I was observing the same as OP. Most fields wasn't being displayed.

I was also seeing this on lots of pages.

Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in field_attach_load() (line 660 of /var/www/vhosts/hicrowds.com/httpdocs/qa.hicrowds.com/modules/field/field.attach.inc)

All the modules providing the fields were enabled.

When flushing the cache via Drush and the UI, it kept throwing a site error.

So I tried truncating all the cache tables manually. Still had a few errors but less, so I re-saved the modules page. Then finally all the fields appeared again.

So something else to try I guess if you're hitting this.

Answer 6

Check the content_field_instance_delete() function.