Error "Target instance already exists (cannot create new record)" when adding new record

[Piotr Sarnowski]

Hi All,

When adding new record to target_instance from Clone Profile record I am getting an error saying that "Target instance already exists (cannot create new record)", however this instance is not there. Any idea what might be a problem? Thanks! 

[Lloyd Buffery]

Hi Piotr,

Was this issue ever fixed? Currently experiencing the same issue myself.

[sarnowskip]

HI ticket was required. 

[davidpridemore1]

I know this is a somewhat old thread but it's the first one that comes up with this error and doesn't seem to have a solution.

In my case, I saw that there was a previously renamed instance on the instance table. The underlying database was the same as the instance I was trying to clone, and so the validation would fail. By deleting the other record from the instance table, I was then able to insert the new record with the correctly named instance.

So for example: old instance name was abc2 but the new instance name was abctest. The instance table still referenced abc2. I deleted abc2 and was then able to insert abctest. To ServiceNow, the name of the subdomain doesn't seem to matter much for cloning purposes. It's the underlying SQL database reference that matters here.