Empty values are shown as null instead of [Empty] in activity section

[RC19]

Normally when any field is changed to empty value then it will show in activity section as below:

• Assigned to              [Empty] was Bernard Laboy 

But in my other instance it is showing up as below

• Assigned to              null was Bernard Laboy 

instead of [Empty] it is displaying as null. Have anyone faced such issues and what could be the cause?

[GlideFather]

@RC19 can you give more examples of another tables?

If it is for example Task x Incident, it might be the same root cause...

Go to table sys_update_xml (watch out it is extensive one, it captures all manual changes - searches in all the update set) and search in the payload for "assigned_to" and see any recent changes...

[Iamcarus]

Hey @RC19 ,

there can be two reasons
1. Garbage value in sys_user table which means users with no user id.
2.  Client Script / Business Rule Customization, which is setting it to null.

Best option check for the garbage value in sys_user table and delete the users or give them User ID.

I hope that helps

[RC19]

Hi @Iamcarus  Issue is for all fields not only for any user based fields . If I set any field to empty then it will be showing up as null in activity section and it is across the platform , not on any particular table.

[Chris Cardenas]

We are experiencing the same issue in our instance.

In Out of the Box Fields, if it had a value and then later the value was cleared and the record saved, In the past it would show as: empty was x... now it shows as null was x.

[brandont]

Hello,

I had this problem as well, so I put in a case with ServiceNow support. It's apparently a problem PRB1901431.

This is what they gave me:
Solution Proposed:
After looking into our knowledge base, this appears to be a known issue reported in PRB1901431.

PRB1901431 has been marked as a duplicate of PRB1893483 which I have associated to your case.

I am pleased to inform you that this issue has been resolved in below mentioned releases :
Yokohama Patch 5 (Which is available for upgrade)
Xanadu Patch 10 (Which will be available in August 2025)