Hmm, I’m running out of ideas then. This part of the UI runs directly off of the REST API, so I’d recommend turning to that to try to figure out what’s going on with the abstract.
You can read about our REST API usage guide and consult the API reference for publication endpoints. I think you’ll want to try to retrieve that publication from the REST API using a GET request, and then also test sending a PUT request with updated abstract details.
We had a similar problem that editing metadata (e.g. the title) of back-articles that were imported was not possible.
In our case, we found in the API answer that there was a hidden carriage return (\n) at the beginning and end of the abstract.
Upon POST, the API thinks that the abstract is empty and refuses the change with the above error.
This can be changed easily: Change the section setting of the corresponding section of the article to “Does not require abstracts”.
THANKS! it works! I had the same problem. After hours of trying, analysing post content etc, I found your solution. You saved my day!