Json Shuffle
No, it's not a fun dance. The Json Shuffle (or Json Scramble, as it is also known) was what happens when you add or remove a JSON Assets mod and then continue playing your save. The IDs of your items are likely to get mixed up (shuffled, if you will) and where once you had a blood orange you might now have a lucky clover or a sword or who-knows-what. The shuffle is due to the fact that Json Assets does not hardcode item IDs in but assigns them dynamically when the game is started.JSON shuffles most noticeably affect existing items, but can also shuffle entries on known NPC likes and shipped items on the Collections tab.
The resulting item is usually an overlap of both the original and new icon, with a name that may be the new item or another mishmash (e.g., "Irish Breakfast Tea Wine" or "Magnolia Sapling Honey"). The items won't damage your save, but they (usually) won't work properly either, so the easiest way to handle them is simply to ship them like any other item to be sold. Sell prices reflect the new item, so if you were lucky enough to have, say, your Octofruit turned into an expensive legendary wine, be prepared for quite the payout! The most likely items to experience the shuffle are flowers that come in multiple colors or items that are in a machine (e.g., a keg or custom machine) - if you empty out your machines and sell any colored flowers before adding or removing JA mods, you'll likely be safe.
Rarely, an item will be glitched enough that it will cause SMAPI to close out of the menu to prevent the game from crashing. Should this happen, the best way to correct is to close the game without saving, remove/add back any new mod(s) that added/removed items, and sell any items that would be affected by the shuffle before adding/removing back the mods you want to add.
To ensure you avoid the Json Shuffle, choose which JA mods you want to use for a playthrough at the start of your game, download and install them, and then do NOT add or remove any for the rest of your playthrough. Updates to mods you're using may contain new items, so keep that in mind and read the changelogs before updating JA mods. If you do add or remove a JA mod during a playthrough, be prepared for shuffled items. You can use a mod like CJB Item Spawner to restore your lost items. In order to determine what your items were before the shuffle, you can use Lookup Anything with the data mining fields turned on to see the item context tags, which should reflect the former name of the item.
JSON shuffle was patched out and eliminated in 2023. It no longer occurs in JA or other frameworks in 1.6, due to both the error handling and the string-based IDs which obsolete the previous dynamically assigned numerical IDs. If you wish to experience what a JSON Shuffle would have been like, Casey released an April Fool's mod adding JSON Shuffle back to 1.6.
Custom Furniture has its own version of Json Shuffle: if you remove a furniture mod whose furniture you were using, the removed items will turn into other CF items. (Note: CF is an obsoleted framework as of 1.6.)
There is also a related shuffle for NPCs - if you add or remove NPCs during Winter, it can cause your secret giftee for the Feast of the Winter Star to change.
In which shoes become popsicles.
A 64-bit Shuffle which has drained this item of its color and turned its description to ???
A Lookup Anything page of a three-way JA hybrid; it was originally a Dried Flower from PPJA and has the Dried Flower sprite overlaid on the sprite of a Raffadax Dried Grape Leaf, and it is named Dried Rose Quartz. Its description is of the grape leaf.
These colorful carp are the result of modded colored flowers turning to fish.
