payloadcms/payload · error · Error

Locales must be defined for locale columns

Error message

Locales must be defined for locale columns

What it means

Thrown by the SQLite columnToCodeConverter when converting an enum column that is locale-aware (has a 'locale' key) but no locales array was supplied to the converter. For a localized enum the set of allowed values must come from the configured locale codes, so an empty/undefined locales list makes codegen impossible.

Source

Thrown at packages/drizzle/src/sqlite/columnToCodeConverter.ts:28

}) => {
  let columnBuilderFn: string = column.type

  const columnBuilderArgsArray: string[] = []

  let defaultStatement: null | string = null

  switch (column.type) {
    case 'boolean': {
      columnBuilderFn = 'integer'
      columnBuilderArgsArray.push("mode: 'boolean'")
      break
    }

    case 'enum': {
      let options: string[]
      if ('locale' in column) {
        if (!locales?.length) {
          throw new Error('Locales must be defined for locale columns')
        }
        options = locales
      } else {
        options = column.options
      }

      columnBuilderFn = 'text'
      columnBuilderArgsArray.push(`enum: [${options.map((locale) => `'${locale}'`).join(', ')}]`)

      break
    }

    case 'geometry':
    case 'jsonb': {
      columnBuilderFn = 'text'
      columnBuilderArgsArray.push("mode: 'json'")
      break
    }

View on GitHub (pinned to 00c58b35c0)

Solutions

1. Pass the full locales array (from payload.config.localization.localeCodes) into the converter invocation.
2. If the column is no longer localized, migrate the DB so the column is not marked with 'locale'.
3. Ensure localization is enabled in the payload config before running codegen.

Example fix

// before
columnToCodeConverter(column, { ... }) // locales omitted
// after
columnToCodeConverter(column, { locales: payload.config.localization.localeCodes, ... })

function convertEnumColumn(column, locales) {
  if ('locale' in column && (!locales || !locales.length)) {
    throw new Error('Locales must be supplied for locale enum columns')
  }
}

const isLocaleColumn = (c) => 'locale' in c

When it happens

Trigger: Running the schema-to-code converter on a SQLite enum column marked as localized while the converter is invoked without a locales argument (or with an empty array).

Common situations: Programmatic schema introspection / codegen tooling that forgets to pass locales; disabling localization in config while legacy locale columns still exist in the DB.

Related errors

• Either collectionSlug or globalSlug must be provided
• Cannot provide both collectionSlug and globalSlug
• Localization is not enabled in payload config
• ${collectionSlug ? 'Collection' : 'Global'} not found: ${col
• Migration aborted: version__status column not found in ${ver

AI-assisted analysis of payloadcms/payload@00c58b35c0 (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/298568396738b92c. Report an issue: GitHub.