Error When Adding Custom Content Type to Sharepoint List

Question

I am setting up a SharePoint app/list to house my business team's project proposals for the next budget year. I've created a custom content type (named CostProject) that has several columns in it that describe our cost projects.

Because we plan on using this process for years to come, I'm envisioning a structure where CostProject is the generic content type, with sub-content types for each budget year (2018 CostProject, 2019 CostProject, etc.). So I created another custom content type (named 2018 CostProject) that inherits all of the columns from CostProject.

Now I'm trying to create a list of all of these cost projects. So I added a new app (type: Custom List) and named it ITDD Cost Projects. I went into list settings >> advanced settings and checked the option to "Allow management of content types." Back on the list settings, I scrolled down to the content types section and clicked "Add from existing site content types."

This brought up a form where I could select various content types, so I selected 2018 CostProject from the available content types and clicked "Add >" then clicked "OK." After clicking OK, this is the error I get every time:

"The formula cannot refer to another column. Check the formula for spelling mistakes or update the formula to reference only this column."

Thinking this might have something to do with the syntax of one of my calculated columns, I went back the CostProject content type and removed all of the calculated columns (copied their formulas, etc. into a document so I can come back to them later). However I still get the same error message every time I try to add the content type to the list.

Any idea what I'm missing here? I'm pretty new to SharePoint so perhaps it's something basic--any help would be greatly appreciated!

THANK YOU!!!

If its on-premise install use UlsViewer to get the stack trace. Download from: microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44020. Run the program. Go to File → Open from → ULS then try adding your content type once more and look for log entry with level Unexpected — tinamou
Thanks for the suggestion @tinamou--unfortunately I don't have direct access to the machine with the SharePoint install nor do I know anything about the machine so I can't easily browse to the log files on it. I've submitted a request to my company's IT support to get the filepath of that machine's ULS logs--with the approaching holiday it will likely be late next week or beyond until I hear from them. I will keep you updated if I can run the ULSViewer. Thanks again. — Tom Winchester
@tinamou - still unable to access logs (IT is looking into it). Could it have anything to do with some column names that are already in the list being the same as some column names from the content type? See this image: imgur.com/EzOaHcN — Tom Winchester
Actually I created an album so you can see the different screens I'm looking at: imgur.com/a/fM1Gh — Tom Winchester

tinamou tinamou · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-03T21:08:02

So for the sake of people not reading comments. When you encounter an error which states that:

The formula cannot refer to another column. Check the formula for spelling mistakes or update the formula to reference only this column.

You should check your validation formulas on columns.

It may occur in different situations, but the core issue is that field cannot be added to list:

Here is reported bug when creating list from template and this is possible workaround.

Error When Adding Custom Content Type to Sharepoint List

1 Answers