Component Metadata values becomes Null/Empty in Broker after re-publishing it dynamically

Question

We have a component having below fields in the metadata:

1. ID (Single Line Text Field)
2. Expire Date (Date Field)
3. Message (Single Line Text Field)

With this when we publish this component, the values goes to Broker DB as expected and after updating the values of above fields reflects in the Broker DB as well.

Now when we add another metadata field of type “Embedded Schema” and start updating the above fields, it starts behaving strange. So now after updating when I publish the component, ONLY the RECENTLY UPDATED metadata fields have values in broker, other field values become NULL or Empty. And the pattern continues in subsequent publish actions.

The Embedded Schema has fields something like below:

1. DomID (Single Line Text Field)
2. Medium (Keyword Field)
3. Tag (Keyword Field)

Now If I choose any value in one(or both) of the keywords fields and publish the component, It starts behaving normal and all the values present in the Broker DB.

Any Idea guys, what could be the reason for this strange behavior?

*Just to make sure It's not related to broker caching, we will be disabling it and test the behavior. I will update the question with the results.

Answer 1

The correct course of action, of course, will be to first install SP1 HR1 so environments are consistent - this will likely be the instructions from Support without having to add further hotfixes to complicate the setup (remembering that hotfixes are not supported in the context of being used with other hotfixes etc. but are provided on an 'as is' basis.

I've checked the list of hotfixes applied in HR1 and nothing seems to explicitly match the scenario described but that's not to say it isn't the solution.

Answer 2

We found an answer, but it's very much a workaround.

We determined that all of the field values are saved when you select a value from a single value metadata field that is linked to a category with multiple keywords. We tried multiple iterations of this, just to confirm that this condition made it publish and that not doing this condition made it not publish.

Following that, we added a new dummy radio button field, pointed it to a category that had multiple keywords, and set one of those to be the default. That makes it work for new components. We also made sure that it had a descriptive label telling the content editor that one of the options had to be selected (since they wouldn't be populated just when you're editing). This should take care of existing components.