Assistance Needed: Incident Integration Issue After Recent Patch Update

krishna115
Tera Contributor

3 weeks ago

Hi All,

 

We have an incident integration with the customer that was implemented about few years ago. In this integration, the incident state is bi-directionally mapped, and everything has been working fine until last week.

Recently, reported an issue: when an incident is in the Resolved state and the customer sends a Resolve update request (with the state still set to Resolved), the state remains unchanged as expected. However, the close_note field is being cleared, and this change is captured in the activity log.

 

  • There is state validation when it closed or cancelled, before updating the state.
  • Other fields are remain same only close_note is being cleared (there is no parameter in the payload related to close_note).
  • No changes have been made to the integration logic or scripts.
  • In the month of November, our instance was updated with Yokohama Patch 7 Hotfix 2b.
  • I reviewed the update history and patch details but found nothing relevant.
  • Script tracer was enabled for troubleshooting, but no clues were found.

Adding a condition to prevent this is possible, but need to identify the root cause first. Could you please suggest how to proceed with identifying the issue?

 

Thanks,

Krishna

0 Helpfuls
  • 170 Views
1 REPLY 1

Matthew_13
Tera Guru

2 weeks ago

This is almost certainly caused by Yokohama Patch 7 HF2 changing how ServiceNow handles null/empty inbound fields, especially for close_notes when an incident is already Resolved.
Even if you did not send close_notes, their payload may include null or empty fields.

The new patch now treats null as “clear this field”, which matches your exact symptoms I believe.
 
1. Check the inbound REST payload
Look at the REST API logs and verify whether the customer is sending close_notes as null, empty, or as part of a full-object PUT.
If any blank value there is present I would say Yokohama Patch 7 now treats that as an explicit command to clear the field.
2. Run Script Tracer with 'Watch Fields'
Enable the Script Tracer and add close_notes to the watch list to see precisely when and how it changes during the update.
This will immediately reveal whether a script, business rule, or the platform itself is wiping the field.
3. Inspect Business Rules and Data Policies
Review any BRs or Data Policies that run on update and touch state, close_notes, or close-related fields.
A rule that previously didn’t trigger may now be firing differently after the Yokohama hotfix.
4. Test in a cloned sub-prod instance
Replay the same inbound payload into a DEV clone with all custom logic disabled.
If the close_notes still clears, the issue is coming from a platform regression, not your integration or scripts.
5. Open a HI Case
Report the behavior as “close_notes field clearing on inbound resolve update after Yokohama Patch 7 HF2.”
Provide REST logs and tracer output so ServiceNow can confirm if you’ve hit the newly introduced regression.
0 Helpfuls