Magento – Invalid backend model specified backend_startdate_specialprice

After updating Magento from CE v1.8.0.1 I hit the following error when trying to reindex a client’s website in Magento admin;

Invalid backend model specified: catalog/product_attribute_backend_startdate_specialprice

Product pages 404

Despite showing product listings on category pages correctly, all product page links on the website produced 404 errors.

Checking the errors logs I found the following;

specialprice exception.log error

2015-05-14T10:10:54+00:00 ERR (3):
exception 'Mage_Eav_Exception' with message 'Invalid backend model specified: catalog/product_attribute_backend_startdate_specialprice' in /../../www/www/app/Mage.php:579

specialprice system.log error

2015-05-14T10:15:16+00:00 ERR (3): Warning: include(Mage/Catalog/Model/Product/Attribute/Backend/Startdate/Specialprice.php) [<a href='function.include'>function.include</a>]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory  in /../../www/www/lib/Varien/Autoload.php on line 93

2015-05-14T10:15:16+00:00 ERR (3): Warning: include() [<a href='function.include'>function.include</a>]: Failed opening 'Mage/Catalog/Model/Product/Attribute/Backend/Startdate/Specialprice.php' for inclusion (include_path='/../../www/www/app/code/local:/../../www/www/app/code/community:/../../www/www/app/code/core:/../../www/www/lib:.:/usr/local/php53/lib/php')  in /../../www/www/lib/Varien/Autoload.php on line 93

Cause of the error

This happened on a copy of a database, that I had cloned to perform the Magento core update. The database was quite large, so it could have been corrupted whilst exporting it to a different server.

As it’s a time/date issue its possible the database time zone settings were different, which could have caused the issue.

Fixing the error

Backup your database and run the following to synchronise your special price start date.

UPDATE `eav_attribute`
SET `backend_model` = 'eav/entity_attribute_backend_datetime' WHERE `backend_model` = 'catalog/product_attribute_backend_startdate_specialprice';

Thanks to Stackoverflow for the original solution. Take a look at our other Magento error articles for further help.