Temporarily disabling Fivestar module leave CCK fields as "inactive"

Hi,

we're using 'Fivestar' CCK fields to allow users to vote on certain node types.

After temporarily disabling the 'Fivestar' module, all CCK Fivestar fields and widgets are gone. The 'Fivestar' module has been re-enabled.

At ./admin/content/node-type/image/fields we're now getting error messages like:

This content type has inactive fields. Inactive fields are not included in lists of available fields until their modules are enabled.
Rating (field_rating) is an inactive Fivestar Rating field that uses a Stars widget.

Neither the Fivestar- nor the CCK UI allow to "re-activate" those fields and widgets after the 'Fivestar' module has been enabled again.

There have been lots of similar reports, as well for the 'Fivestar' module (e.g. #327041: fivestar field missing after upgrade to drupal 6.6) as for many other CCK modules (e.g. #590860: Option Widget Inactive Fields , #404352: Image (field_image_cache) is an inactive image field, #467890: Date (field_date) is an inactive Datetime field, #486760: Allow removal of inactive fields when module not installed, #483084: Deleting inactive fields); so this issue obviously has two aspects: one that applies especially to the handling of 'Fivestar' CCK fields by the module itself when the module is being disabled and re-enabled; and a broader one that applies generally to CCK: the latter one is far beyond my scope of understanding so I won't be able to file a proper issue against CCK.

Quicksketch provided a workaround which requires some user frontend to MySQL like PhpMyAdmin:

- In the table "content_node_field" set the "active" column to 1 for the Fivestar field.
- In the table "content_node_field_instance" set the "widget_active" column to 1 for the Fivestar field instance.

Since we don't have PhpMyAdmin installed, a set of SQL commands would be helpful. Let's try...:

mysql> select field_name from content_node_field where active = 0;
+--------------+
| field_name   |
+--------------+
| field_rating |
+--------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select field_name from content_node_field_instance where widget_active = 0;
+--------------+
| field_name   |
+--------------+
| field_rating |
| field_rating |
+--------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

OK, that's our field. Now we tried:

mysql> UPDATE content_node_field SET active = 1 WHERE field_name='field_rating';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Rows matched: 1  Changed: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> UPDATE content_node_field_instance SET widget_active = 1 WHERE field_name='field_rating';
Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Rows matched: 2  Changed: 2  Warnings: 0

That seems to fix the issue for now. I hope we havn't broken anything - I wasn't ware that using Drupal would require SQL skills.

I'm setting this issue to 'critical' because

• already entered data (meaning: votes) dissappears (meaning: can't be accessed or displayed anymore);
• views that are based on Fivestar votes do break completely (missing/broken handler);
• temporarily disabling a module is a common troubleshooting procedure in the Drupal world; it must not happen, that trying to resolve one issue results in reproducably causing another issue (meaning: breaks a module like "Fivestar"); and last but not least
• neither the Fivestar- nor the CCK UI allow to "re-activate" those fields and widgets after the 'Fivestar' module has been enabled again; it is inacceptable to be forced to manipulate CCK database tables to resolve issues like this when prominent CCK developers like KarenS explicitly are advising against users to manipulate CCK database tables.

Thanks & greetings,
-asb