Shop metafields not accessible in liquid

[grob]

I'm losing my mind here. I've declared a shop metafield at this namespace and key (yes there's only one input box for the both of them separated by a ".") "custom.mto_shirt_form_data" and have given it a JSON value which is correctly formatted and is only 8 bytes. This is how I try to access it "{% assign form_data = shop.metafields.custom.mto_shirt_form_data.value %}" and it gives me nothing. Nor does "shop.metafields.custom.mto_shirt_form_data", nor does, "shop.metafields.custom", nor does "shop.metafields" (I've tried them all as JSON and not). But "shop" logs as "DropShop" (from memory), which is supposedly fine so the theme I'm using (Madrid) hasn't changed it.

I have no clue why this is so hard to access. I can add all the data I need in JS, access it and build the form I want to build with basically just JS, but I wanted to do things the "right" way, which has had me furiously trying to access some data for 4 hours that from everything I've seen, should be really simple, but is resulting in nothing but mounting anger.

Please let me know what I'm doing wrong or if there's something odd that might be preventing this from working. I'm all ears. Trust me I've been in circles with check on this from mr GPT himself, and he seems to have nothing for me...

[PaulNewton]

Hi @grob 👋 Check the docs

https://shopify.dev/docs/api/liquid/objects/metafield#metafield-accessing-metafields-of-type-json 

Try accessing the JSON properties  through the value 

{{ shop.metafields.custom.mto_shirt_form_data.value.some_property_name_in_the_json }}

Try building up to it 

 {{ shop.metafields.custom | json }}
 , {{ shop.metafields.custom.mto_shirt_form_data | json }}
 , {{ shop.metafields.custom.mto_shirt_form_data.value | json }}

👨‍💻 The '| json' filter is only for examination purposes of content it is not actually needed to access a JSON type custom content as an object with properties.

It's hard because shopify messed the bed and have built a mind-maze in the theme systems custom content of when and how .value applies, poor tooling, and poor UX in the admin(when making a metafield/metaobject it should just give sample code that even merchants can use) etc etc etc ad nauseum. But hey it keeps the chatgpt somewhat at bay.

[grob]

Hahaha yeah you're right about that last bit, but after having tried all of these again, none of them give me anything but

{}
 , null
 , null  

 I've now tried using a metaobject instead, but after doing this:

{{ metaobjects.custom_frontend_data.mto_shirt_form_data.value }}
{{ metaobjects.custom_frontend_data }}
{{ metaobjects }}

 as well as outputting the json representations of them, and all I'm getting is

MetaobjectDefinitionDrop
MetaobjectDefinitionsDrop

 and 

null
{"error":"json not allowed for this object"}
{"error":"json not allowed for this object"}
 

respectively. I think I'm just going to declare the object in JS, expose it in window and write the form in JS, because this sunk-cost attitude is currently doing nothing but making me look clueless to my boss haha. If you actually manage to figure it out I'll stick with the liquid-first approach, but yeah I can certainly think of things I'd rather be doing than saying "please work" to my laptop screen at the mercy of Shopify

[CodingFifty]

Hey! @grob,

It sounds like you’re doing everything right, but the most common reason `shop.metafields.custom.mto_shirt_form_data` returns nothing is that the metafield hasn’t been exposed to the storefront. Go to Settings > Custom data > Shop in your Shopify admin, find your metafield definition, and ensure the “Storefronts” access option is checked. Without this, Liquid can’t access it even if it exists. Once enabled, `shop.metafields.custom.mto_shirt_form_data.value` should work as expected.

[grob]

Yeah that was one of the many things that I ensured was there on the checklist but I let out of my post. But the storefront api access checkbox is ticked