No title sort for Entity Reference fields

@mikeker,

Thanks for the quick replies. Just to be clear, though, I'm not setting up a view. I'm just creating a reference field on a content type, and trying to sort it (for the auto-complete) on the label field.

More specifically... I have a content type "city". For that one, instead of "Title", I named the label "City".

I then created a content type "destination", and created a field named "Origin City", which was a reference to the "city" content type. When I got down to specifying "sort by", neither "Title" nor "City" were showing in the selection list.

But I have another content type, "country", with label renamed to "Country". When I created the "city" content type, I added a field "Country", which is a reference to the "country" content type. In that case, the "Country" field was in the "sort by" selection list.

Thinking it might be a caching issue, I've tried clearing caches several times, but still no go.

I've tried different things now. I hope this isn't too confusing.

I created "test" content type, with only the body field. "Title" was renamed "Test". I tried to add a field referencing this content type to the "destination" content type. Neither "Title" nor "Test" were in the "sort by" selection. [From now on I'll refer to this as "It didn't work", and if the label field (either as "Title" or the overridden name) appears in the selection list, I will say "It DID work".

I created "test2" content type, with only body field. "Title" was NOT renamed. I tried to add it to the "destination" content type as a reference field. It didn't work.

In the "city" content type, I tried to add a reference to "test2". It didn't work. [So this is an entirely new content type, with no additional fields added, exhibiting the same issue as the "city" content type.]

In the "test2" content type, I added TWO reference fields, one for "country", and one for "city". When I added the reference to "country", the label field (named "Country") WAS in the "sort by" selection list [i.e. it DID work]. For the reference to "city", the label field WAS NOT in the selection list [i.e. it didn't work].

It's almost as if, at a certain point, label stopped showing in the selection list for all content types created after that point.

Ahh, now we're getting somewhere. Thanks everyone for your quick replies, even on (especially on) the weekend. That helped "us" zero in on the issue (and how to reproduce it).

In a (semi)fresh D8 installation, I went to the "Basic page" content type and added a reference to "Article". In that case, "Title" DID appear in the list (just under "Language").

I then went back to the site with the issue, and did the same thing with "Basic page" and "Article". "Title" did NOT appear in the list.

In that site, in addition to "Basic page" and "Article", I have four content types: City, State, Country, and Destination - all with the Title label overridden to be the same as the human-readable content types. I edited each one and changed label back to "Title", then went back to "Basic page" to add a reference to "Article". This time "Title" DID appear in the list (just under "Language" as above).

I then edited the "State" content type and changed the Title to "Something Else", to get away from any conflicts with my Title label being the same as any field I have defined ("Country", for example). Again, adding an "Article" reference to "Basic page", at the same point in the list that I had seen "Title" (under "Language"), I saw "Something Else" (see screenshot).

I then edited the "City" content type and change the Title to "Something Else 2", and added the same reference as before. "Something Else" still appeared in the list (where "Title" should be), but "Something Else 2" was nowhere to be seen.

So it appears that the first content type to have the default label ("Title") overridden shows in the list in place of "Title", but any other overridden labels don't show up. When I originally reported this, the fact that my first overridden content type, "Country", happened to be the same name as one of my fields masked what was happening. That is, two entries named "Country" were being added to the select list, with one overwriting the other (it seems).

Yes, I just changed all content types back to the default "Title".

I'm just glad we were finally able to zero in on how to replicate it.

Thanks again to everyone.

While we are in the process of patching the routine that builds the "Sort by" selection, could we possibly sort it as well? As the list of fields gets longer, it gets more difficult to find what you're looking for with them in (seemingly) random order.

Ideally, it would be nice if it could show only the fields that are actually available on the content type (or types) that have been selected, but I realize that would require it to be JS/AJAXified or changed to use a multi-form approach.

Is there any way to find a solution for this? I understand @Blanca's point about shared fields, but perhaps we need to be showing the machine name instead of the first label found for a shared field. That would at least make it less confusing.

In a recent project, I have a couple of content types where I've overridden the title label. For example, one is "Customer". So when I want to sort a completely different reference field on "title", am I supposed to select "Customer" and hope that it will actually be sorted on the correct field? At least if I saw "title" - or, if I'm wanting to sort on a custom field, I'd see something like "field_purchase_order" - I'd know I'm choosing the correct field.