Issue with model mapping of Embedded fields on DXA 1.8

Question

Recently we upgrade Tridion platform to 8.5 and DXA from 1.3 to 1.8. Although everything seemed OK at the beginning, we are having issues with model mapping of Embedded fields. All the Embedded models are just NULL with in the parent object. After struggling for few days, we found that renaming embedded field's root element to same of its parent(In our case its "Content") solved the issue. But We have some existing schema with multiple embedded fields and we can't rename both embedded fields to "Content". Tried specifying Semantic property to the embeded models but still no joy :(

[SemanticEntity(Vocab = CoreVocabulary, EntityName = "ContentType", Prefix = "s")]

I tried debugging the DXA code and I could see an issue with mapping on DefaultModelBuilder -> MapFieldValues() -> MapEmbeddedFields() -> GetFieldFromSemantics(). The xpath is always taking Content\Content\ insted of Content\ContentType\ even after specifying the the entity name on Semantic property.

To me, this seems to be a mapping issue with DXA 1.8. Can someone confirm? Is there any other way to address the embedded mapping issue?

EDIT Here is the complete schema.json

 {
    "Id": 30241,
    "RootElement": "Content",
    "Fields": [{
            "Name": "title",
            "Path": "/Content/title",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "title"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "description",
            "Path": "/Content/description",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "description"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "first_name_label",
            "Path": "/Content/first_name_label",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "first_name_label"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "first_name_placeholder",
            "Path": "/Content/first_name_placeholder",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "first_name_placeholder"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "first_name_required_message",
            "Path": "/Content/first_name_required_message",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "first_name_required_message"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "last_name_label",
            "Path": "/Content/last_name_label",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "last_name_label"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "last_name_placeholder",
            "Path": "/Content/last_name_placeholder",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "last_name_placeholder"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "last_name_required_message",
            "Path": "/Content/last_name_required_message",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "last_name_required_message"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "email_label",
            "Path": "/Content/email_label",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "email_label"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "email_placeholder",
            "Path": "/Content/email_placeholder",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "email_placeholder"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "email_required_message",
            "Path": "/Content/email_required_message",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "email_required_message"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "subscription_types",
            "Path": "/Content/subscription_types",
            "IsMultiValue": true,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "subscription_types"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": [{
                    "Name": "title",
                    "Path": "/Content/subscription_types/title",
                    "IsMultiValue": false,
                    "Semantics": [{
                            "Prefix": "tri",
                            "Entity": "SubscriptionType",
                            "Property": "title"
                        }
                    ],
                    "Fields": []
                }, {
                    "Name": "description",
                    "Path": "/Content/subscription_types/description",
                    "IsMultiValue": false,
                    "Semantics": [{
                            "Prefix": "tri",
                            "Entity": "SubscriptionType",
                            "Property": "description"
                        }
                    ],
                    "Fields": []
                }, {
                    "Name": "newsletter_id",
                    "Path": "/Content/subscription_types/newsletter_id",
                    "IsMultiValue": false,
                    "Semantics": [{
                            "Prefix": "tri",
                            "Entity": "SubscriptionType",
                            "Property": "newsletter_id"
                        }
                    ],
                    "Fields": []
                }
            ]
        }, {
            "Name": "summary",
            "Path": "/Content/summary",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "summary"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "gdpr_consent_text_pm",
            "Path": "/Content/gdpr_consent_text_pm",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "gdpr_consent_text_pm"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "cta_text",
            "Path": "/Content/cta_text",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "cta_text"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "thank_you_link",
            "Path": "/Content/thank_you_link",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "thank_you_link"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }, {
            "Name": "error_link",
            "Path": "/Content/error_link",
            "IsMultiValue": false,
            "Semantics": [{
                    "Prefix": "tri",
                    "Entity": "Content",
                    "Property": "error_link"
                }
            ],
            "Fields": []
        }
    ],
    "Semantics": [{
            "Prefix": "tri",
            "Entity": "Content"
        }
    ]
}

And sematic entity is always content. It is supposed to be SubscriptionType, isn't it?

Any help appreciated!

Issue Resolved

As per Rick's comment, For some reason publish settigns was pointing to old version of DXA and after registering embedded type everthign worked like charm!

Answer 1

The problem seems to be that your schemas.json is incomplete.

In DXA 1.7, the semantic mapping was refactored (in order to introduce refrofit mode). As part of that refactoring, mapping of embedded fields was changed. Since DXA 1.7, you should see multiple semantics for embedded fields in schemas.json: one representing the embedded schema and one representing the embedding schema (and even more if you have multiple levels of embedding).

This change in semantic mapping both on CM side and in the Web Application is supposed to be backwards compatible (no changes to your View Model types should be needed), but you do have to ensure that you republish schemas.json by means of republishing the ”Publish Setting” Page after upgrading to DXA 1.7 or higher.

You are saying that you don’t see multiple semantics for embedded schema fields in schemas.json, even after republishing the “Publish Settings” Page. That makes me wonder whether you have properly upgraded your DXA on CM-side.