"Value must be unique" error when maxDocs is reached

[notflip]

Describe the Bug

I'm not sure what the default behaviour is when the versions of a collection reach the maxDocs (20 in my case), but I'm getting the following errors:

"data": {
        "id": 29,
        "errors": [
          {
            "message": "Value must be unique",
            "path": "id"
          }
        ]
      },
      "isOperational": true,
      "isPublic": false,
      "status": 400,
      "name": "ValidationError"
    }

Link to the code that reproduces this issue

working on it

Reproduction Steps

working on it

Which area(s) are affected? (Select all that apply)

Not sure

Environment Info

Binaries:
  Node: 20.10.0
  npm: 10.2.3
  Yarn: 1.22.22
  pnpm: 9.13.2
Relevant Packages:
  payload: 3.25.0
  next: 15.2.0
  @payloadcms/db-postgres: 3.25.0
  @payloadcms/email-nodemailer: 3.25.0
  @payloadcms/graphql: 3.25.0
  @payloadcms/live-preview: 3.25.0
  @payloadcms/live-preview-react: 3.25.0
  @payloadcms/next/utilities: 3.25.0
  @payloadcms/plugin-cloud-storage: 3.25.0
  @payloadcms/plugin-nested-docs: 3.25.0
  @payloadcms/plugin-seo: 3.25.0
  @payloadcms/richtext-lexical: 3.25.0
  @payloadcms/storage-s3: 3.25.0
  @payloadcms/translations: 3.25.0
  @payloadcms/ui/shared: 3.25.0
  react: 19.0.0
  react-dom: 19.0.0
Operating System:
  Platform: darwin
  Arch: x64
  Version: Darwin Kernel Version 24.3.0: Thu Jan  2 20:22:00 PST 2025; root:xnu-11215.81.4~3/RELEASE_X86_64
  Available memory (MB): 16384
  Available CPU cores: 8

[github-actions]

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Useful Resources

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[r1tsuu]

I wasn't able to reproduce this, the default behavior is to "shift" the oldest version and push the new version and it should not error.

[notflip]

@r1tsuu It's related to this: #9449 open issue

I've also noticed that the error is related to the maxPerDoc, when I delete a few older pages_v (versions) the error is gone when I press publish, but is still there when autosaving.

The following error always precedes this error

[16:52:20] ERROR: There was an error building form state
    err: {
      "type": "ValidationError",
      "message": "The following field is invalid: id",
      "stack":
          ValidationError: The following field is invalid: id
              at upsertRow (webpack-internal:///(rsc)/./node_modules/.pnpm/@payloadcms+drizzle@3.28.0_@types+pg@8.10.2_@types+react@19.0.10_payload@3.28.0_graphql_623b06f101eda66ff18c3b02ef805b2e/node_modules/@payloadcms/drizzle/dist/upsertRow/index.js:364:19)
              at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5)

And also

      "data": {
        "errors": [
          {
            "message": "Value must be unique",
            "path": "id"
          }
        ]
      },
      "isOperational": true,
      "isPublic": false,
      "status": 400,
      "name": "ValidationError"
    }

[notflip]

@r1tsuu Could this be related to the Postgres version? I'm running version 16 on Coolify, (17.4 is the current)

[YCMitch]

Can confirm I'm experiencing the exact same issue with Posgres v17. Thank god you noticed this, I've been losing my mind trying to figure it out.

[YCMitch]

Actually no I lie - removed the versions and I'm still getting the same error:

{
    "errors": [
        {
            "name": "l",
            "data": {
                "id": 16,
                "errors": [
                    {
                        "message": "Value must be unique",
                        "path": "id"
                    }
                ]
            },
            "message": "The following field is invalid: id"
        }
    ]
}

Ignore me. I think I'm just gonna move back to Sanity - it's all too buggy.

[r1tsuu]

I'll do another look of this tomorrow. Answering your question: no, I don't think it can be related to the Postgres version.

[r1tsuu]

Ignore me. I think I'm just gonna move back to Sanity - it's all too buggy.

Sad to hear your frustrations. What other bugs did to experience? We'd be happy to fix them!

[YCMitch]

• With autosave active, it'd just delete any text entered into an input every couple seconds, so we had to disable it completely
• We've encountered this "The following field is invalid: id" over and over, and try to recreate the entire page every time
• There's a few others here and there the team encountered but I don't recall them off the top of my head
  We're supposed to go live today and our client's pretty annoyed, but all we can really do is shrug. There seem to be duplicate fields everywhere in the post body, so I assume there isn't any solution that doesn't mean "delete it and spend days rebuilding everything again".
  Aware I should spend my afternoon making a minimal repro for you guys but it's just more time that I don't have. I really enjoy you're open source etc etc but we've followed the docs precisely and we're still in hot water here.

[notflip]

@YCMitch Are you on the latest version of Payload? (I still have to test this in detail but I feel like I haven't seen the error since the latest update)