[BUG] - 500 Internal Server Error when Patching Recipe Tags

[SimeonSouttar]

First Check

• This is not a feature request.
• I added a very descriptive title to this issue (title field is above this).
• I used the GitHub search to find a similar issue and didn't find it.
• I searched the Mealie documentation, with the integrated search.
• I already read the docs and didn't find an answer.
• This issue can be replicated on the demo site (https://demo.mealie.io/).

What is the issue you are experiencing?

A 500 Internal Server Error is returned by the Mealie API when attempting to PATCH a recipe's tags using the /api/recipes/{slug} endpoint. This occurs when the payload includes new tags that do not yet exist in the database.

It appears related to the RecipeTag schema validation missing the group_id field during the update process, causing a TypeError in the backend when it attempts to initialize the tag object.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Have a running instance of Mealie.
2. Identify an existing recipe slug.
3. Send a PATCH request to /api/recipes/{slug} with a payload that includes a new tag name that does not exist in the database.

{
  "tags": [
    {
      "name": "New Tag",
      "slug": "new-tag"
    }
  ]
}

4. Observe the 500 Internal Server Error response.

Please provide relevant logs

TypeError: init() missing 1 required positional argument: 'group_id'
(Note: This is the expected traceback based on similar reports; please confirm with your actual server logs if available).

Mealie Version

Build ID: 4fbace36-29e6-4cd6-94f8-f7445fd74855

Deployment

Other (please specify below)

Additional Deployment Details

Proxmox LXC Container

Interacting with Mealie via Python script using urllib. The issue is reproducible consistently via API.

[michael-genson]

Related:

• [v1.0.0b] - __init__() missing 1 required positional argument: 'group_id' #2417
• [BUG] - __init__() missing 1 required positional argument: 'group_id' #5074

group_id is required but we shouldn't throw a 500 error if it's missing

[francisferrell]

I can confirm this is happening without tags being in the PATCH request. I recreated the same error when the request body includes the following fields:

• recipeCategory
• recipeIngredient
• recipeInstructions
• orgURL
• groupId
• householdId
• userId

When I first got this error I realized I hadn't included groupId and friends in the request body. When I added them I still get the same 500 error.

I recreated this on 3.9.2.

As a workaround, I'm doing a GET on the recipe, updating the response body with the fields I care about, and then doing a PUT on the recipe. This matches the workflow in the importer GUI which asks the user to confirm the parsed ingredients.

[michael-genson]

You're probably missing it in your categories. Patching works, we use it in the app

[francisferrell]

Then I clearly need to improve my import script because I'm passing an array of strings for categories. I'm guessing I need to pre-populate all organizers and use their full data models in the recipe update API request body.

FWIW groupId in recipeCategory is not marked as required in the API docs.

[michael-genson]

Yeah I want to get this fixed in #6803. It's an annoying issue for sure