[!success] Resolved
This issue has been resolved in thev7.11.0.2update, released July 14, 2025.To see the original issue description, see here, and to check if any records were affected in your database, see our instructions on identifying and correcting affected data.
Dear Specify Community,
Thank you for your patience as our development team worked to resolve the recent data entry issue. We are pleased to announce that a fix has been released in Specify 7 v7.11.0.2. This update corrects the bug that incorrectly modified the “Is Current” field in Determinations and the “Is Primary” field for Collector when editing a record via the data entry form.
As a reminder, only records that have been created or modified using the data entry forms since their database was updated to 7.11.0 will be affected by this issue. Records created or updated through the WorkBench or using Batch Edit are unaffected.
For complete technical details on the issue and its resolution, please see the official entry on our GitHub repository: Issue #7069 and Fix #7073.
Action for Specify Cloud Users
All Specify Cloud instances that were running version 7.11.0 have already been automatically updated to v7.11.0.2. No action is required on your part to receive the fix. We do, however, recommend you proceed to the section below to identify any records that may have been affected in your database.
Action for Self-Hosted Institutions
If your institution self-hosts Specify 7, your IT administrator can update your instance by pulling the latest Docker image. The update process can be completed by running the following commands from your Specify 7 deployment directory:
docker-compose pull
docker-compose up -d
Identifying and Correcting Affected Data
This bug was active from the time of the v7.11.0 update until the patch was applied. For our Specify Cloud users, this period was from July 9, 2025, to July 14, 2025. Self-hosted users should confirm their specific update dates with their IT staff.
We have created a guide on our Discourse community forum that provides a template query to help you find all records that were modified during this period and may have been affected. If you have any questions
Please visit this post for instructions: Find all records modified since a particular date.
Once you have a list of potentially affected records, please review them for the following issues:
- Collection Objects with multiple Determinations: Check that the correct determination is marked as
Is Current. The bug would have incorrectly set the oldest determination as current upon saving the record. - Collecting Events with multiple Collectors: Verify that the correct collector is marked as
Is Primary. The bug would have incorrectly set the last collector in the list as primary upon saving the record.
These fields can be corrected manually on the data entry form for each affected record.
Clarification on the Bug’s Behavior
Further investigation confirmed that the issue only occurred when a field belonging directly to the Collection Object or Collecting Event table was modified, triggering a save of the main record.
Modifications made to fields in related, independent tables via subforms—for example, editing a Locality field from the Collecting Event form—did not trigger the bug. However, editing a field in a dependent table, such as the Preparation subform on the Collection Object form, would have triggered it.
We apologize for the disruption this issue caused. If you have any questions or need assistance with identifying or correcting your data, please do not hesitate to contact our support team at support@specifysoftware.org.
Sincerely,
The Specify Collections Consortium Team
Original Message
Dear Specify Community,
We have just discovered an issue with the recent 7.11.0 update that may require immediate action. This issue occurs in Collection Object records with multiple Determinations and/or Collecting Events with multiple Collectors.
When any field on the Collection Object form is modified (whether the field is a Collection Object field or a field on an associated table), the Determination ‘Is Current’ field is set to true for the oldest determination and the Collector ‘Is Primary’ field will be set to true for the last entered Collector.
Only records that have been created or modified using the data entry forms since their database was updated to 7.11.0 will be affected by this issue. Records created or updated through the WorkBench or using Batch Edit are unaffected.
Our developers are currently working on a fix for this issue and it will be released as soon as it has been approved for release, regardless of the time of day it is approved. We recommend not modifying your database on Specify 7.11.0 until the fix has been released.
Specify Cloud hosted instances currently in 7.11.0 will be updated with the fix as soon as it is approved. We will send out an announcement to everyone when it is released so self hosted instances can update as well.
If you have any questions, please contact user support at support@specifysoftware.org or membership@specifysoftware.org.
Scope:
Only records that have been created or updated manually using data entry forms (not WorkBench or Batch Edit) since the update will be impacted.
- Manually updated Collection Object records with more than one Determination
- If modified in any way, the last Determination will be erroneously marked as “current” automatically
- Manually updated Collecting Event record with more than one Collector
- If modified in any way, the last Collector will be erroneously marked as “primary” automatically
Solution:
- Rollback to previous database backup (Specify Cloud users can revert to July 8, 2025)
- Query to find all Collection Object and Collecting Event records with multiple determinations/collectors modified since the
v7.11.0update on July 9, 2025.
- Use Batch Edit to reassign the current determination
- Update records individually to make sure data is accurate
- Our team can provide guidance on how to resolve this systematically to preserve data integrity without losing newly entered data loss
Specify Collections Consortium team