---
title: "Important: The link column of pages is nullable now"
manual: "Academic Partners"
version: "main"
source: "Changelog/3.0/Important-PageLinkColumnIsNullable.rst"
modified: "2026-09-17T07:34:13+00:00"
---

# Important: The `link` column of `pages` is nullable now

## Description

The extension adds a `link` column to the shared `pages` table.
It was declared as:

```sql
link text NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
```

MySQL cannot store a default value on a `TEXT` column. TYPO3 works
around that from v13 on, by expressing the default in the
`DEFAULT ('')` syntax MySQL 8.0.13 introduced — so the declaration
is harmless on every core version this release supports. On TYPO3 v12 it
was not: the column ended up `NOT NULL` with no default at all, and
creating a page in the backend failed with
`Field 'link' doesn't have a default value`.

The column keeps its type and loses the default instead:

```sql
link text DEFAULT NULL,
```

The change is carried here as well so that both maintained branches
declare the column identically.

## Impact

Records written without naming the column now store `NULL` where
they previously stored an empty string. Existing rows are not changed, so
the column can hold both. Code that reads it should compare with
`empty()` rather than with `''`.

## Affected Installations

All installations of this extension. The database schema has to be
updated, either in the maintenance area of the install tool or with
`typo3 extension:setup`. The change only relaxes the column, so no
data is converted and nothing can be lost.