The removed $entity->original magic property is still used in five places, breaking Drupal 12

Problem/Motivation

Reading the magic $entity->original property is deprecated in drupal:11.2.0 and removed from drupal:12.0.0, replaced by EntityInterface::getOriginal() (change record 3295826). Core renamed its own real property to $originalEntity specifically so it would not clash with the deprecated magic one, so on core 12 the magic getter is gone and the expression evaluates to NULL.

Webform still uses it in five places. The most visible consequence is that saving any Webform config entity fatals on Drupal 12:

Error: Call to a member function getAccessRules() on null at src/WebformEntityStorage.php:101, reached from Webform::save().

That is enough to fail every kernel test that saves a webform, and it happens in setUp() rather than in an assertion, so the tests error rather than fail.

Steps to reproduce

On core 12.0.x-dev, save a Webform config entity, for example in the setUp() of any kernel test that creates one.

Proposed resolution

Use EntityInterface::getOriginal() where it exists, and keep the magic property as the fallback where it does not. getOriginal() was only added in 11.2 while this branch declares ^10.3 || ^11, so calling it unconditionally fatals with "call to undefined method" on 10.3 through 11.1. The MR therefore selects per site with method_exists(): the magic property on 10.3 to 11.1, where it still exists and raises no deprecation; getOriginal() from 11.2 on, where it avoids the deprecation and is the only path left in 12.

Dropping the method_exists() and using getOriginal() outright needs a branch whose floor is 11.2, which is a wider decision than this issue: Drupal 12 will require dropping Drupal 10 anyway, so that may belong to a 6.4 branch.

• src/WebformEntityStorage.php line 101, in doPostSave().
• src/Entity/WebformSubmission.php lines 878 to 880: an isset() check plus two calls through the property. The resolved original is NULL when there is none, so the isset() becomes a null check.
• src/Hook/WebformEditorHooks.php line 44, passing the original into _webform_get_config_entity_file_uuids().

Remaining tasks

Review, and decide whether the same sweep should cover the 6.x branch.

User interface changes

None.

API changes

None.

Found while testing another module against core 12, after #3618362: Align definitions of getSortedDefinitions and getGroupedDefinitions with core and #3618665: webform_submission.exporter injects plugin.manager.archiver, which Drupal 12 removes cleared the earlier failures. It is the third distinct Drupal 12 break in webform and the one that stops the module functioning rather than merely warning.

AI-Generated: Yes (Claude Code was used to help draft this issue summary and the change. I reviewed them. The fatal was observed on a real Drupal 12 pipeline and I grepped the branch for every remaining use of the property.)