Applying the Events recipe failed with fatal error because field_date already existed

This is expected. The event recipe treats the field_date strictly. Meaning if there is a field_date in the system, then it HAS to look exactly the same as it does in the recipe, and if it doesn't, it should fail.

Here is where that is in the recipe.

https://git.drupalcode.org/project/drupal_cms/-/blob/1.x/recipes/drupal_...

It makes perfect sense to me that this doesn't work, but this is going to be pretty common in a world of contrib recipes and site templates. So it's definitely worth capturing these cases and improving the experience.

In this case, the error itself is not very helpful. So improving the error message to provide specific information about what config is causing the problem, and what you can do to get around it, might be a good first step? That would be a recipe feature I assume?

I agree with both Jim and Pam here; fields determine the structure of the database and conflicts/differences can cause data loss, so it is completely reasonable for the recipe to require a pre-existing field_date to be a strict match.

Closing because this works as intended.

@phenaproxima So should we create a new issue for better error handling?

In my recipes, I remove the

field_

and replace it with sa_ (for saplings). There is a secret simple config called field_ui.settings where you can change it.

I call it secret because it has no UI, you need to change it in the config and then import it.

Created a follow up issue in the Recipes component of core.

@pameeela, there's not a lot we can do from here - the error comes from core.

Thanks, yes I assumed that the fix would be in core :) Just didn't want this to get lost.