Error occurred in deployment of step ‘Activate Features’: the field with ID defined in feature was found in the current site collection or in a sub site.

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I ran into this issue a couple times now and figured I’d write down the “workaround”.  I say workaround as this is not a real fix as from my understanding a bug has been filed and the product group(s) are working on a resolution.  The KB article to the work around is here: https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2022443 but just in case the link goes away here are the steps:

The root cause of this issue is that Field elements are not properly retracted after their ID (GUID) is changed between deployments. This is also caused if you forgot to enclose the Field ID (GUID) in braces.

Note: Make sure that your Field IDs (GUIDs) are always enclosed in braces.

First resolution:

· Retract the Solution/WSP in VS.

· Close VS.

· Reopen VS and deploy the Project.

Second resolution:

If closing VS after retraction doesn't solve the problem then a larger workaround is:

· Redeploy the project -> This will show an error during feature activation.

· Go to SharePoint UI and Activate and then Deactivate the deployed feature that was showing activation error in VS.

· Retract the Solution/WSP in VS.

· Close VS.

· Reopen VS and deploy the Project.