This Salesforce error that Gearset is surfacing is usually encountered when running a Compare and Deploy or a Data Backup Job where metadata is being retrieved from or deployed to Salesforce.

The ErrorId that is returned is one returned to Gearset by Salesforce and is called a GACK code. Salesforce explains why these codes occur: What is a Gack?

As an example - Salesforce returns the error "An unexpected error occurred. Please include this ErrorId if you contact support: 1234567890-1234 (-547594032)".

In this error the code 1234567890-1234 is created by Salesforce and is unique to the error occurrence. This reference helps Salesforce locate the error in their logs when raised with their support team.

The secondary number in brackets (-547594032) is created off the back of the error, and may give an indication of the metadata type that is causing the issue.

Due to our experience in this sector, we have noticed a few trends with GACK codes. The list below was created by spotting patterns. We have seen there are a few possible common GACK codes that are linked to metadata types, we have also linked what we believe is the cause of the error:

Unknown cause at this time, however was related to Standard Value Set Translation metadata type when this occurred.

This is most likely due to private email templates with Modify All data permission unticked.

This ID is likely caused by the hitting limits of either deploying 10,000 files at once or having a zip larger than 39MB.

This ID is likely surfaced when a non-ASCII character has been used in the metadata or object name or there is a missing character causing a parse error.
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Can be caused by Apex code, and has been known to have been caused by an extra 'or missing'

Unknown cause at this time, however was related to an Apex Class metadata type when this occurred.

This ID is likely caused by a Salesforce Summer'23 Known Issue (KI). The KI link for further details on this can be found here.

Salesforce suggests a couple of options to try and resolve the issue:

This ID is likely caused by the hitting limits of either deploying 10,000 files at once or having a zip larger than 39 MB.

This ID has been surfaced with two causes that we know of:

Unknown cause at this time, however the Salesforce API returns an issue regarding Contact_Centre_Group.

Unknown cause at this time, however the error was related to Layout metadata type. We observed that all Layout components that failed the validation were dependent on Quick action metadata type - at this point it's unclear if this has any relevant to the error.

Failure is due to objects having different owners. For this code, group the knowledge articles by owner and break up the deployment.

This is caused by a picklist value that is no longer active on the target. Either remove the picklist value from the deployment, or activate it on the target org.

This is a known Salesforce issue as documented here.

Please follow the workaround provided by Salesforce to resolve the error.

When trying to remove the only target for an audience on the target, this error will be given. However, if you specify an empty <targets> tag for the audience it will remove deploy successfully and remove this target from the audience.

This is caused due to an invalid file type in ContentDocuments where the FileType is not known. This is known to occur when converting Attachments to ContentDocuments using this tool which doesn't support some file types.

Unknown cause at this time, however was related to the Navigation Menu metadata type when this occurred.

Confirmed by Salesforce Support that this error is related to Call center metadata type. The recommendation is to exclude this metadata type from the filter if it continues causing an issue.

Unknown cause at this time, however those two error IDs were related to the ContentAsset metadata type when they occurred.

Unknown cause at this time, however it may have been related to unfinished code in one of the Apex classes.

Seems to be linked to the activation and deactivation of Sales Engagement studio. Causing report types to be associated with that.

Unknown cause at this time, however was related to CustomField metadata type - it was a changed picklist field retrieved from the source that errored on the validation.

Unknown cause at this time, however the error was related to ApprovalProcess metadata type components and the Case Custom object. Error occurred on a CI job.

Unknown cause at this time. This error was related specifically to Flow metadata type.

Additional context on the use case we've seen:
Flow's status was Active in the source (Git branch), and the comparison in Gearset was run on API v 59, while the API version of the Flow pointed was v60 (in Flow's XML file). The recommendation is to run the comparison in our app using API version 60 to see if that resolves the error.

This error is encountered on deployment when their is a referenced component that is missing/not installed in the target org. This could be a package that is being used in the Flow.

As further examples are encountered, we will add them into this document.

There can be multiple codes for a metadata type. Each code indicates a slightly different issue within that metadata type that Salesforce should be able to advise further on.
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​Please note that the codes listed above are not definitive; the reason why is better described here

To resolve this issue please raise the error with Salesforce support to locate why the problem is occurring when trying to retrieve the metadata from the Metadata API.

As a workaround to this issue, exclude the metadata type causing the error from your deployment or data backup job until the cause of the error is provided by Salesforce support.

Further examples of this Salesforce validation error can be found here:

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