"This field cannot be blank." when syncing a branch

[deliciouslytyped]

I'm on NetBox 4.2.2 with the netboxlabs-netbox-branching pip package.

I've somehow managed to trigger the following while initially experimenting with the plugin:

{
    "log": [
        "Syncing branch wat2 (branch_p5sb8zll)",
        "Found 1 changes to sync",
        "Setting branch status to syncing",
        "Applying change Extras | journal entry 2025-02-08 05:50 () created by admin using schema_branch_p5sb8zll",
        "Creating journal entry <DeserializedObject: extras.JournalEntry(pk=4)>",
        "{'kind': ['This field cannot be blank.']}"
    ]
}

[cruse1977]

Reproduction steps.

• Create Branch, activiate, Create a journal entry with empty kind against a device
• Try to merge branch

[deliciouslytyped]

I don't think you need to activate a branch to sync it, but that's probably beside the point.

[jeremystretch]

This seems to stem from an inconsistency in how the kind field is handled in NetBox itself. I've opened netbox-community/netbox#18872 to investigate further. Marking this as blocked for now.

[jeremystretch]

I've implemented a fix for the root cause in NetBox PR #18901, which will also update any existing journal entries with no kind assigned. The fix is due to ship in NetBox v4.2.6.

Unfortunately this won't address any entries created within a branch: Those will need to be addressed manually if the branch cannot be abandoned. The below script should make the necessary adjustments for a branch (run in manage.py shell).

from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType
from django.db.models import F, Func, Value, JSONField

from core.choices import ObjectChangeActionChoices
from extras.choices import JournalEntryKindChoices
from extras.models import JournalEntry
from netbox_branching.models import Branch
from netbox_branching.utilities import activate_branch

# Enter your branch name below
BRANCH_NAME = "My Branch"

branch = Branch.objects.get(name=BRANCH_NAME)
with activate_branch(branch):
    JournalEntry.objects.filter(kind='').update(kind=JournalEntryKindChoices.KIND_INFO)

qs = ObjectChange.objects.using(branch.connection_name).filter(
    changed_object_type=ContentType.objects.get_for_model(JournalEntry),
    action=ObjectChangeActionChoices.ACTION_CREATE
)
qs.update(
    postchange_data=Func(
        F('postchange_data'),
        Value(['kind']),
        Value('info', JSONField()),
        function='jsonb_set'
    )
)