MidCOM DBA has code to set this but it's not triggered.
[3:06pm] mashiara: [debug] midcom_baseclasses_core_dbobject::_set_creator: $object->metadata before magick
[3:06pm] mashiara: Variable Type: NULL
[3:07pm] mashiara: I think the metadata object does not exist before one tries to put values there
[3:07pm] mashiara: for a fresh object
[3:08pm] mashiara: piotras would know when this has changed
[3:09pm] mashiara: the point is that MidCOM DBA core has extra safeties here from times when it needed to run on both 1.7 and 1.8
[3:09pm] mashiara: and this object->metadata being null will trigger those safeties