How to fix "Keep the names of variables associated with a catalog item unique"?

[Michael Butak1]

Hello,

Similar to this question recently posted on community.service.com, I am getting an error which says:

Context:
Our servicenow admins did some work on our dev environment.  Prior to this I exported my catalog item work to xml.  After the admins made their change I uploaded the xml.  Initially I could not load my catalog item because it said that the id of the catalog item wasn't found.  One of our admins did something to fix this.  Now I can load the catalog item, but there are duplicates of every single variable on the item.  By inspecting the Update column, I can tell which of the duplicates is older.  When I try to edit the duplicate variables to make them disabled, I get the above error.  How can I fix this?  

@Musab Rasheed since you were able to address the post above, I wondered if you have any insight on this new case?

Thank you,
Michael

[Allen Andreas]

Hi,

Just to state this, ideally, you would export your development within an update set, for example, and not just the XML as there are more moving parts than just a single record (the item has variables, which reside on another table, etc.). Then after any changes to Dev was done, like a clone from Prod, you'd commit your update set back in, and resume development.

You didn't really tell us what kind of work was done on Dev, so I'm just assuming it was critical enough for you to think you need to export your work, but again, it's better to do that via source control or update set, etc. If you tried to bring it back, then it sounds like your catalog item was still there anyway, but then you forced it back in causing the "duplicates".

Anyways, this is happening because of a business rule on the "item_open_new" Variable table called: check for same name variables.

Due to the wonkiness that has been caused here, you may need to temp disable this BR, do your changes as needed, and then turn it back on. I would be very careful with this.

Please mark reply as Helpful/Correct, if applicable. Thanks!

[Michael Butak1]

Thank you very much @Allen Andreas !  I *think* I actually did export the update set (as XML)?  I actually had to have a highly experienced co-worker do the export as I didn't have permissions.  Yes we were doing a clone from Prod.  Everyone seems pretty baffled by this situation.  Thanks for the tip about the Business Rule, we'll explore that solution!

[Allen Andreas · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Ok, if you exported the update set, then that's good 🙂

And thanks for the clarification about the clone from Prod. If your catalog item was never on Prod then it's a weird chain of events that would have led to a duplication such as what you're mentioning.

In any case, unless you all can recall all the steps, this may be a one off and it may be best to fully removed it (just capture all that in default set) and then commit only yours and proceed from there. Just a suggestion.

In any case, the business rule I mentioned is the culprit for the error message you're seeing.

If I've helped guide you Correctly, please also mark my reply as Correct.

Thanks and take care! 🙂