Error preventing config distro updates on a Drutopia site: Argument 4 passed to WidgetBase null, called in Field/WidgetPluginManager

The site was a pretty old, early one but i had successfully updated it a couple weeks ago. I didn’t save the database (the update was done locally), though, and trying to either update starting from the live database or trying to import my previously-working configuration and then update both ran into this error on the config distribution ‘import updated configuration’ step:

[Wed Aug 29 22:44:27.868323 2018] [proxy_fcgi:error] [pid 3034:tid 139934364858112] [client 192.168.42.1:59628] AH01071: Got error ‘PHP message: TypeError: Argument 4 passed to Drupal\Core\Field\WidgetBase::__construct() must be of the type array, null given, called in /var/www/drutopia/web/core/lib/Drupal/Core/Field/WidgetPluginManager.php on line 125 in /var/www/drutopia/web/core/lib/Drupal/Core/Field/WidgetBase.php on line 50 #0 /var/www/drutopia/web/core/lib/Drupal/Core/Field/WidgetPluginManager.php(125): Drupal\Core\Field\WidgetBase->__construct(‘datetime_timest…’, Array, Object(Drupal\Core\Field\BaseFieldDefinition), NULL, NULL)\n#1 /var/www/drutopia/web/core/lib/Drupal/Core/Plugin/DefaultLazyPluginCollection.php(81): Drupal\Core\Field\WidgetPluginManager->createInstance(‘datetime_timest…’, Array)\n#2 /var/www/drutopia/web/core/lib/Drupal/Component/Plugin/LazyPluginCollection.php(80): Drupal\Core\Plugin\DefaultLazyPluginCollection->initializePlugin(‘datetime_timest…’)\n#3 /var/www/drutopia/web/core/lib/Drupal/Component/Plugin/LazyPluginCollection.php(148): Drupal\Component\Plugin\LazyPluginCollection->get(‘datetime_timest…’…\n’, referer: http://family-home.local/batch?id=7&op=start

Definitely not finding the same error when i look for it :-(

When i finally “go back to the error page” … http://family-home.local/batch?id=7&op=finished

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 201326592 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 165679104 bytes) in /var/www/drutopia/web/core/modules/config/src/Form/ConfigSync.php on line 410

Well heck.

Every time.

Increased the memory limit to 512 megabytes just for fun, same thing.

Oh good lord:

http://family-home.local/batch?id=7&op=finished

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 2147483648 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 1608519680 bytes) in /var/www/drutopia/web/core/modules/config/src/Form/ConfigSync.php on line 410

That’s two gigabytes.

This error happened both with trying to config distro update from the live database and after trying to force in configuration (that was newer than the live database)