Magento error message – The value of attribute “x” must be unique.

When creating or saving products in Magento, a common error message when using attributes and custom options is the following:

“An error occured while saving the product. The value of attribute “x” must be unique.”

Where “x” is the name of your attribute, this might be Manufacturer or Chain Size for example.

To fix this navigate to the following:

1. Catalog
2. Attributes
3. Manage Attributes
4. Click on your attribute
5. Choose ‘No’ in dropdown box for ‘Unique Value’.
6. Save your changes.
7. Re-index data @ System > Index Management > Select All > Reindex Data > Submit.

To combat this initially, when creating your new attribute ensure that the option for Unique Value is set to no on your attribute options.