Hi, we are having a strange problem as we tried to move on to MigrationSteps instead of manual deployment steps. In one page model we have a ContentReference required field which we would like to use as an initial value to set a new ContentArea property. The problem is, when this MigrationStep runs, the ContentReference property returns null, although the value is there in CMS (ID, language is the same). The value is also there when we run the controller for that content. The most interesting part is that if we manually run this MigrationStep from a context of a controller for instance, the ContentReference property returns the actual non-null value correctly the code succeeds.

public class MyMigrationStep : MigrationStep
{
    private readonly Injected _contentRepository;
    private readonly Injected _contentTypeRepository;
    private readonly Injected _contentModelUsage;

    public override void AddChanges()
    {
        var contentType = _contentTypeRepository.Service.Load();
        var contentReferences = _contentModelUsage.Service.ListContentOfContentType(contentType)
            .Select(contentUsage => contentUsage.ContentLink);

        foreach (var contentReference in contentReferences)
        {
            var model = _contentRepository.Service.Get(contentReference);

            if (model.ContentReferenceToBeCopied != null) // PROBLEM: this is null when running as a MigrationStep
            {
                var clone = (MyPageModel)model.CreateWritableClone();

                if (clone.ContentAreaToCopyTo == null)
                {
                    clone.ContentAreaToCopyTo = new ContentArea();
                }

                if (clone.ContentAreaToCopyTo.IsEmpty)
                {
                    clone.ContentAreaToCopyTo.Items.Add(new ContentAreaItem
                    {
                        ContentLink = clone.ContentReferenceToBeCopied
                    });

                    _contentRepository.Service.Publish(clone);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

[ContentType(DisplayName = "MyPageModel", GUID = "ab83f1e2-2619-43c1-90a4-42e2fd35618b", Description = "")]
public class MyPageModel : PageTypeBaseModel
{
    [Display(
        Name = "ContentReferenceToBeCopied",
        GroupName = SystemTabNames.Content,
        Order = 100)]
    [Required]
    [UIHint(UIHint.CatalogEntry)]
    [AllowedTypes(typeof(MyVariationContent))]
    public virtual ContentReference ContentReferenceToBeCopied { get; set; }

    [Display(
        Name = "ContentAreaToCopyTo",
        Description = "",
        GroupName = SystemTabNames.Content,
        Order = 200)]
    [Required]
    [UIHint(UIHint.CatalogEntry)]
    [AllowedTypes(typeof(MyVariationContent))]
    public virtual ContentArea ContentAreaToCopyTo { get; set; }
}

But running the same manually from a controller works:

new MyMigrationStep().AddChanges()

Any ideas are welcome! Using EPiServer.Framework 10.10.4.