Bases - error message about filter "contains"

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1

Hi,

On my Daily Note page, I have two Base views that use the filter “contains”. For example, one of them is intended to show me any note that I have created today, and the filter I’m using in my Base is:

note["Date Created"].contains(this.file.name)

The Base seems to be working correctly and shows correct results with the filter applied. However, every time I navigate to the Daily Note page or I scroll through it, Obsidian gives me an error message:

Failed to evaluate a filter: Cannot find function “contains” on type Date

This error is not creating any functionality problems for me, but I’m wondering why the error keeps popping up and what I can do about it.

Thanks!

2

Assuming your key Date Created is a date type of key, it’s probably because of that :blush: …

I mean, .contains(), per the documentation, can only be used on string/text and list …

What you could do though is coerce the date into a string:

note["Date Created"].toString().contains(this.file.name)
3

My “Date Created” property is actually set up as a “Text” property…

4

Hmmm :thinking: …

In this case, you probably have a “type inconsistency” with the “Date Created” key across your vault: In some notes, the key is actually of type text and some others of type date :blush: … and these date keys trigger the error you got.

5

Had the same issue. Here is how I fixed it.

Basically, I setup a “created” property initially it was a date. Then I switched it to a text.

I went through every single note (like 20) and manually checked each property was set to Nov-12-2025 (for example).

But I still kept getting the error.

I tried switching the property to a list and back to a text.

Still error.

Eventually I found a note that where created was 11-12-2025. And even though I had typed that in manually as 11-12-2025 and the property was showing as text. For some reason Obsidian was treating it as a date.

I switched it to Nov-12-2025 and the error stopped showing.

So, I was getting two of the same error popups, the first time I went through everything I started only getting one error popup.

When I fixed that last note. All the pop ups went away. So, I think depending on the number of pop ups you have you might have one or more notes with something stored as the wrong type.

Hopefully that makes sense. Good luck.

6

I use Dewey Decimal numbers as a file property. I prefix the Dewey numbers with a euro sign €, e.g. €491.2, to prevent confusion with ordinary numbers, and I set the type of the Dewey property as “text”. Some files have more than one Dewey number, so I use the “contains” function as a filter in Bases to retrieve all files containing a particular number as a property. The filter works perfectly, but every time I open such a Base I receive the error message “Failed to evaluate a filter: Cannot find function “contains” on type Number.