V16: Pattern matching from Member Picker value (IPublishedContent) to strongly typed Member model not working

[JosRaedts]

Which Umbraco version are you using?

16.3.1

Bug summary

After upgrading from Umbraco 13.11.0 to Umbraco 16.3.1 the value from a member picker field cannot be pattern matched to a strongly typed (custom) member object.

Specifics

In Umbraco 13, we could rely on the fact that the following code worked flawlessly for our client solution:

if (certification.Profile is not Profile profile || certification.Candidate is not Candidate candidate) { return null; }

The "profile" and "candidate" fields are both links to items, the "profile" links to a different content item, while the "candidate" field is a member picker.

In Umbraco 13 this code would return an actual candidate if the field was filled in correctly. We could then use properties defined on the Candidate model (that was synced using the Models builder functionality).

Now that we've upgraded to Umbraco 16.3.1, this functionality sadly does not work anymore. The candidate value is empty (even though we use the same data).

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a Umbraco 13 project with a document type that has a field of type "member picker" on it
2. Create some items and link a member to it
3. Make sure the models are synced locally to use them in your custom api endpoints
4. Use the if statement with pattern matching to convert the value of the "member picker" field to the actual strongly typed model of the member type of your choice (ideally create a custom member type to match our implementation)
5. You should see that the pattern matching succeeds, leading to the candidate variable containing a useful value instead of "null"

Repeat the above steps for a fresh Umbraco 16.3.1 instance and compare the results of step 5

Expected result / actual result

Expected result: you should be able to use pattern matching to convert an IPublishedContent value, coming from the member picker field, to a strongly typed (custom) member object in Umbraco 16
Actual result: performing the pattern match leads to the candidate variable being "null"

[github-actions]

Hi there @JosRaedts!

Firstly, a big thank you for raising this issue. Every piece of feedback we receive helps us to make Umbraco better.

We really appreciate your patience while we wait for our team to have a look at this but we wanted to let you know that we see this and share with you the plan for what comes next.

• We'll assess whether this issue relates to something that has already been fixed in a later version of the release that it has been raised for.
• If it's a bug, is it related to a release that we are actively supporting or is it related to a release that's in the end-of-life or security-only phase?
• We'll replicate the issue to ensure that the problem is as described.
• We'll decide whether the behavior is an issue or if the behavior is intended.

We wish we could work with everyone directly and assess your issue immediately but we're in the fortunate position of having lots of contributions to work with and only a few humans who are able to do it. We are making progress though and in the meantime, we will keep you in the loop and let you know when we have any questions.

Thanks, from your friendly Umbraco GitHub bot 🤖 🙂

[umbracocommunity]

This issue has been mentioned on Umbraco community forum. There might be relevant details there:

https://forum.umbraco.com/t/how-to-retrieved-current-published-logged-in-member-in-generated-model-format/5016/4

[JosRaedts]

FYI: I have found a solution to make my code work, but it seems like it shouldn't be necessary to do it that way.

If you're looking for an answer on how to solve this, please have a look at this Umbraco Forum page: https://forum.umbraco.com/t/how-to-retrieved-current-published-logged-in-member-in-generated-model-format/5016/4

Wonder if this was the plan for the member picker references or if it is something that was missed