Custom Field Type error when deploying solution

Question

I'm having problems when deploying a solution that creates several custom columns, for the content types I need to use. As it turned out I needed a couple custom field types for my application.

The custom field types "work as intended"(until now I have no reason to think otherwise at least) in that the projects deploy without error and everything seems to function normally when used form the sharepoint front-end.

The real problem I have is that when I try to define custom columns from XML using the custom field types I defined, deployed and use everytime, it just doesn't happen. I get an error:

Error occurred in deployment step 'Activate Features': Field type Tag_Field is not installed properly. Go to the list settings page to delete this field.

This happens when I try to define a column that uses the custom field type. When commenting/removing the column that attmepts to use the custom field type evrything runs fine.

Thank you for the help.

Answer 1

I would use a tool like SharePoint Manager 2010 to have a sneak peek on the caml definition or one of your custom field when created through the browser. You could then compare it to your xml instance to ensure anything relevant is not missing or misspelled.

You should also make sure (through some feature dependency/ies) that your custom fields definitions are deployed prior to the deployment of the application consuming them.