Intellij 2025: DeployMetadata - SfError - The specified metadata type is unsupported: [uiformatspecificationset]

[Nikolai Wackerbarth]

Hi, 

I am getting above error when deploying via UI to my sandbox.

My connection setting API Version and Sandbox API version are 64.0

I can deploy using sf project deploy with separate package.xml but not using Illuminated Clous Deploy Metadata command.

Any hints?

thanks,

Nikolai

[Scott Wells]

Hi. My guess is that it's being picked up from a package.xml file. Check the API version in both package.xml and sfdx-project.json and make sure that they are also set to the higher version.

The other possibility is that 64.0 is for Summer '25 which has not yet been released. IC communicates with the Salesforce APIs using the most recent released API endpoints, currently at API v63.0. But in general if you specify the higher (supported) version in package.xml during deployment -- and it can be picked up from sfdx-project.json as well -- it should be evaluated as that version.

Regards,

Scott Wells

[Nikolai Wackerbarth]

Hi Scott,

thanks for you fast reply. We are not using a package.xml file and the sfdx-project.json file has version 63. It also does not work after setting connection api version to 63.

However, if I create one for testing and use the command sf project deploy start --manifest ../package.xml , it works. How can I get it to work via Illuminated Cloud? (Workaround is including the uiformatspecificationset in forceignore but that's not pretty. 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Package xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
<types>
<members>*</members>
<name>UiFormatSpecificationSet</name>
</types>
<version>63.0</version>
</Package>

 ✔ Preparing 57ms
 ✔ Waiting for the org to respond 565ms
 ✔ Deploying Metadata 8.84s
   ▸ Components: 9/9 (100%)
 ◯ Running Tests - Skipped
 ✔ Updating Source Tracking 2.58s
   ▸ Members: 2/2 (100%)
 ✔ Done 0ms

Thanks,

Nikolai

[Scott Wells]

Hi. Please enable debug logging for Metadata Deployment and Salesforce DX. The resulting idea.log should show exactly where the API version is being sourced for the deployment. Feel free to email it to me for review if the log doesn't help clarify it.

Regards,

Scott Wells

[Nikolai Wackerbarth]

Hi Scott,

that got me on the right track. I saw in the logs that internally it is using CLI to deploy and the path looked suspicious with sfdx instead of sf.

Turns out I had two versions of CLI installed and the up-to-date one is in my path and was used when I successfully tried to deploy using terminal CLI manually and the old one used by Illuminated cloud that did not know about that new metadata type.

Thanks for your fast support!!!

kind regards,

Nikolai

2025-05-19 17:40:29,303 [ 204624]   FINE - #com.illuminatedcloud.intellij.builder.util.ForceComBuilderUtil - Created temporary package.xml file for selective deployment/retrieval:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Package xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
    <types>

        <members>AccountInstallerSPSScore</members>

        <name>UiFormatSpecificationSet</name>
    </types>
    <version>63.0</version>
</Package>

2025-05-19 17:40:29,303 [ 204624]   FINE - #com.illuminatedcloud.intellij.builder.deploy.ForceComSfDeployer - Created temporary package.xml file 'C:/Users/XXX/AppData/Local/Temp/metadata_div1-XXX-package.xml'.
2025-05-19 17:40:29,314 [ 204635]   FINE - #com.illuminatedcloud.intellij.util.VariableLengthPollingInterval - C:/Program Files/sfdx/bin/sf.cmd project deploy start -o ...

[Scott Wells]

Fantastic! Makes sense that an older CLI install was involved. I'm glad that helped diagnose and resolve the issue for you.

Regards,

Scott Wells