Troubleshooting the change subtype command-prompt utility

The command-prompt tool that changes the subtype of a contact instance is described at Changing subtype with a command-prompt utility. When you run this command, the following errors can be reported in the console.

Error message Cause of the error

Failed to change contact to subtype: Bad username or password

Any of the following entries could have caused this problem:

  • You entered an invalid user name.
  • You entered the wrong password.
  • You entered the password without a user specified and you are not using the password of the Super User.

Unless you are user Super User, the default user for this command, you must use the -user parameter and specify a user that has the permissions changecontactsubtype and soapadmin. For example, the role Contact Subtype Changer has these two permissions.

Failed to change contact to subtype: Incorrect runlevel for subtype change. Required: MAINTENANCE, Actual: MULTIUSER

You have not set the application runlevel to maintenance prior to running the command. Use the following command:

system_tools -password adminuser-password -maintenance

Failed to change contact to subtype: Contact with PublicID public-id-value not found

You entered an incorrect value for the PublicID of the contact.

Failed to change contact to subtype: entity-name is not a valid entity type

The entity name you used is not valid. For example, you used ABDoctor in ClaimCenter, or Doctor in ContactManager.

Failed to change contact to subtype: entity-name is not a valid subtype of Contact

The entity name you used for the new subtype is not a subtype of ABContact or Contact. For example, you tried to change the contact subtype from ABPerson to ABContact.

Failed to change contact to subtype: Cannot change Person to Company/Place or Company to Person/Place for contacts with Client tags

The contact has a Client tag, which makes the contact usable by PolicyCenter and BillingCenter. Those applications do not support changing between a Person contact subtype and a Company or Place subtype. See Subtype changes for client contacts.

You see the list of command-prompt options for maintenance_tools, but no error message

Either you misspelled one of the command-prompt options or you did not enter one. Changing a contact subtype requires that you enter both options, -changesubtypetargettype and -changesubtypepublicid. See Changing the subtype of a Contact instance.