# Coping with deprecated columns in Data Explorer **URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/coping-with-deprecated-columns-in-data-explorer/400264 **Category:** Feature **Tags:** data-explorer **Created:** [9 april 2026 om 03:46 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/coping-with-deprecated-columns-in-data-explorer/400264 "2026-04-09T03:46:40Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 1
### Author: ![ted](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/ted/32/283882_2.png) [@ted](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ted) #### Post date: [9 april 2026 om 03:46 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/coping-with-deprecated-columns-in-data-explorer/400264/1 "2026-04-09T03:46:40Z")
One infrequent but annoying problem is [Data Explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true) queries can start breaking when columns are dropped and renamed in core or plugins. Downstream this can cause automations to start failing. To that end, I have opened one PR here, which will mark columns as deprecated in the [Data Explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true) schema explorer (heh): [https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/39173](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/39173) This is small comfort which will mostly help when creating new queries, but it is likely the most we can do without introducing a SQL parser as a dependency into core. However I’m keen on expanding this to also: 1. display a warning on queries that are using deprecated columns, and 2. add a problem check that can surface these issues in the admin notices section of the dashboard. The second one would be the ultimate way of giving admins a heads up before being taken by surprise when upgrading. Would you be okay with introducing a gem to do SQL parsing to support this feature @sam? It could be `require`d only when [Data Explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true) is loaded. --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/coping-with-deprecated-columns-in-data-explorer/400264)._