Running Specify v7.12.0.6
Hopefully I’m just missing something here. In one of the Collections in my Specify instance, I cannot add Preparations to loans. When I try to enter Preps by catalog number, I get this error:
“No preparations were found”
The issue is that the cataloged objects I’m adding do have preparations. At first, I thought that the preptype wasn’t loanable, but it is.
Any ideas?
Our entomology folks told me they have a similar issue when there is no count associated with the prep (i.e., countAmt = Empty). This also happens when countAmt = 0, and obviously when there is no preparation.
[!example]- When preparation
count=0
I looked up that catalog number on your Bivalve collection and it looks like it has countAmt = 1 (see OSUM 46284).
That would make me think that it is associated with an unresolved loan prep and there would be no specimens left to loan from the lot.
[!example]-When the preparation is associated with an unresolved loan prep and there are no additional individuals left to loan.
One thing that seems odd on your screenshot is that it didn’t autofill the leading zeroes after the search. Maybe you don’t have the same catalog number format as me, but it might be worth looking into.
Thank you for letting us know! We haven’t yet reproduced this issue, but are actively looking into it.
Can you please let us know if selecting “Without Preparations” then searching for those records from the Loan Preparations subview on the Loan form makes any difference for you?
Hey @emd0083 thanks for checking up on this and for the info from your entomology colleagues. I actually have noticed the issue they experience too, but it’s not what is going on here. Emmy, the lot in question is actually not in our Bivalves collection, it’s in our Gastropods/ Other Non-Bivalve Mollusk collection which is not publicly viewable yet.
@jdam2k4 I can confirm it makes no difference whether the preparation count is 0 or any positive integer. All the preps I am seeing this error with have counts ≥1.
One thing I think might be happening is that the collectionObjectType might be configured in a strange way that could be causing this? Our Crayfish and Gastropod data were never fully dealt with during the main phase of our specify conversion, in part because the way those datasets are structured is hard to represent cleanly in Specify’s data model.
I have recently been cataloguing new objects into the collection in Specify even though the legacy data has not been entered. The loan issue I mention in the original post is just one weird thing I’ve noticed in this process. @bronwyn @SpecifyMembership you have access this collection (called “Gastropods & Other Less Consequential Mollusks”) as user SPadmin if you’d like to take a look.
Hey @nfshoobs,
I pulled up a copy of your database from the end of July 2026 to investigate this and was able to resolve the issue! You were definitely on to something with the Collection Object Types (COT).
As you said, changing the count to a positive integer has no impact on this issue. I then confirmed that the field format on the CO forms, catalogNumberNumeric, is assigned in schema config. With that, I started to look into COTs.
A query on the Collection Object Types in this collection shows this:
The COT with no format name, “Invertebrate Zoology” was made about a year prior to the “Gastropods” COT. “Invertebrate Zoology” is assigned to the Bivalves tree whereas the other is assigned the Gastropods tree.
I also queried on CO and found that all records in the Gastropods collection are assigned the “Gastropods” type.
From there, I found that deleting the “Invertebrate Zoology” COT fixes the issue 
That said, I think the loan search logic was thrown off because the “Invertebrate Zoology” COT was made first and didn’t have a catalogNumberFormatName assigned.
We can keep looking into the exact cause and write this up, but for now, I’m glad to have found how you can fix the confusing search behavior.
@Bronwyn Thanks!
Are you certain that this doesn’t cause downstream problems with other collections? Is COT scoped only within a collection? I still haven’t really experimented much with COT editing, but I remember @SpecifyMembership made the COTs specifically to solve an issue we were having with the way the trees were displaying in different collections.
Ideally there should be 3 COTs – Bivalve Mollusk, Non-Bivalve Mollusk, and Crustacean. Each scoped to their respective trees and collections.
Edit: Bronwyn’s suggestion solved the issue when I tried it and doesn’t cause any other problems that I can see. 
Yes, Collection Object Types are specific to the collection. COTs are not shared across collections, and deleting a COT in one collection won’t impact the others.
So glad to hear it helped!
