[Bug] ALTER PAGE REPLACE cannot find FOOTER widget inside a DataView

[Chendodelangen]

Summary

REPLACE widgetName WITH { ... } fails with "widget not found" when the target widget is a FOOTER nested inside a DATAVIEW, even though DESCRIBE PAGE correctly reports the widget by that name.

Environment

• mxcli version: current
• Mendix version: 10.24.15

Steps to Reproduce

1. Page has this structure (confirmed by DESCRIBE PAGE):

   DATAVIEW dataView1 (DataSource: $Asset) {
     TEXTBOX textBox1 (Label: 'Reason', Attribute: ReasonForChange)
     FOOTER footer1 {
       ACTIONBUTTON actionButton1 (Caption: 'Save', Action: CALL_MICROFLOW Mod.ACT_Save)
       ACTIONBUTTON actionButton2 (Caption: 'Cancel', Action: CANCEL_CHANGES CLOSE_PAGE)
     }
   }
   

2. Attempt to replace the footer:

   ALTER PAGE Mod.MyPage {
     REPLACE footer1 WITH {
       FOOTER footer1 {
         ACTIONBUTTON btnSave (Caption: 'Save', Action: MICROFLOW Mod.ACT_Save, ButtonStyle: Primary)
         ACTIONBUTTON btnCancel (Caption: 'Cancel', Action: CLOSE_PAGE)
       }
     }
   };
   

3. Result:

   Error: failed to REPLACE: widget "footer1" not found
   

Expected Behaviour

The FOOTER and its children are replaced.

Actual Behaviour

mxcli cannot find footer1 even though DESCRIBE PAGE shows it at that name. The widget appears to be outside the REPLACE traversal scope when nested inside a DataView.

Workaround

Replace individual child buttons instead of the parent FOOTER:

ALTER PAGE Mod.MyPage {
  REPLACE actionButton1 WITH {
    ACTIONBUTTON btnSave (Caption: 'Save', Action: MICROFLOW Mod.ACT_Save, ButtonStyle: Primary)
  };
  REPLACE actionButton2 WITH {
    ACTIONBUTTON btnCancel (Caption: 'Cancel', Action: CLOSE_PAGE)
  }
};

Note: the replacement buttons must use different names from the originals, otherwise a duplicate-name error is raised during the replace operation.

Severity

Low / Medium — workaround exists, but the REPLACE-FOOTER pattern is documented and intuitive; the silent scope limitation is confusing.

[github-actions]

Issue Triage

Summary:
The user reports that ALTER PAGE REPLACE cannot locate a FOOTER widget nested inside a DATAVIEW, even though DESCRIBE PAGE shows the widget correctly.

Checklist for bug report completeness

Required info	Present?	Details
mxcli version (exact)	❌	Only “current” is given; need the exact version (e.g., v1.2.3 or commit hash).
Mendix version	✅	10.24.15 provided.
Scenario (what was tried)	✅	MDL script and CLI command described.
Expected output	✅	FOOTER and its children should be replaced.
Experienced output (error)	✅	Error message: widget "footer1" not found.
AI bug report (mxcli diag --bundle or session log)	❌	Not included.

What’s missing:

• The exact mxcli version (run mxcli --version and share the output).
• The session log or diagnostic bundle (mxcli diag --bundle) to help trace why the widget isn’t found during the REPLACE operation.

Could you please add those details? Once we have them, we’ll be able to investigate the scope issue more effectively. Thanks for reporting!

---

Automated triage via OpenRouter — workflow source

[Chendodelangen]

Additional information requested by the triage bot:

mxcli version:

v0.7.0-dirty (2026-04-21T08:30:06Z)
Go: go1.26.2 windows/amd64

Diagnostic log entries (from session on 2026-04-24):

The following entries show both the first attempt (which failed with a duplicate widget name error because I used the same button names) and the second attempt (which failed with widget "footer1" not found). The third entry confirms I successfully worked around it by replacing individual child buttons instead.

{"time":"2026-04-24T10:28:15.6432573+02:00","level":"ERROR","msg":"execute_error","stmt_type":"AlterPageStmt","stmt_summary":"ALTER PAGE AuditTrail_Custom.AuditTrail_Asset_ReasonForChange","error":"failed to REPLACE: failed to build replacement widgets: failed to build widget footer1: duplicate widget name 'actionButton1': widget names must be unique within a page (existing ID: 50ee53ca-dcfe-4114-9359-acaeabcb6e23)","duration_ms":675}
{"time":"2026-04-24T10:29:20.6785538+02:00","level":"ERROR","msg":"execute_error","stmt_type":"AlterPageStmt","stmt_summary":"ALTER PAGE AuditTrail_Custom.AuditTrail_Asset_ReasonForChange","error":"failed to REPLACE: widget \"footer1\" not found","duration_ms":767}
{"time":"2026-04-24T10:29:59.7004178+02:00","level":"INFO","msg":"execute","stmt_type":"AlterPageStmt","stmt_summary":"ALTER PAGE AuditTrail_Custom.AuditTrail_Asset_ReasonForChange","duration_ms":824}

The widget "footer1" not found error (second entry) matches the exact scenario described in the issue: DESCRIBE PAGE listed footer1 correctly, but REPLACE footer1 could not locate it because it was nested inside a DATAVIEW.

The third INFO entry (success) corresponds to the individual-button workaround.

A full diagnostic bundle (mxcli-diag-20260424-110448.tar.gz) is available and can be shared if needed.