Renaming custom field causes IntegrityError

[llamafilm]

When I tried renaming a custom field today, it threw this exception.

django.db.utils.IntegrityError: null value in column "custom_field_data" of relation "dcim_device" violates not-null constraint
DETAIL:  Failing row contains (2025-08-18 19:04:13.937869+00, 2025-08-18 19:04:15.275299+00, null, 36086, null, null, , null, null, null, active, null, null, , null, 14, 59, 10982, null, 5029, null, null, 348, null, null, null, iBoot-PDU, null, null, null, null, 0, 0, 1, 4, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0).

After some debugging, I believe this is the SQL query that causes the error:

UPDATE "dcim_device"
   SET "custom_field_data" = jsonb_set(
      ("dcim_device"."custom_field_data" - 'password'), 
      '{encrypted_password}', 
      to_jsonb("dcim_device"."custom_field_data" -> 'password')
   )

I have many devices where that password custom field does not exist. I'm guessing this probably happens when creating devices using custom scripts (which I do often), if those fields are omitted.

I'm not sure how to solve this. Should I do something differently, or should something be fixed in Netbox? I'm on v4.3.2.

[llamafilm]

I found a workaround, after creating that key with a null value on all devices, then I can rename the custom field in the UI.

for dev in Device.objects.exclude(custom_field_data__has_key='password'):
    dev.custom_field_data['password'] = None
    dev.full_clean()
    dev.save()

I'm curious, why doesn't Netbox create keys with null values automatically when creating a new device?