Changing ThingTemplate of a ThingTemplate which inheriteds +20k Devices

Hey everyone,

we know already that changing ThingTemplate for an existing BaseThingTemplate is not possible through composer and there exists some topics that suggest to modify the XML file in order to be able to change this. However this only works on “unsealed” extension and not for already sealed ones (isExtension=true, isEditableExtensionObject=false)

We know came across changing the baseThingTemplate Type in the Database directly. e.g. through the following query: 

 UPDATE
        thingworx.thingtemplate_model
    SET
        "baseThingTemplate" = 'RemoteThingWithFileTransfer'
    WHERE
        "name" = 'BaseThingTemplate';

We definitely know this is not the supported way to go but we also didn’t find any other solution which makes a change possible other then having to recreate all 20k+ devices again which means a lot of migration effort.

Therefor I wanted to ask if you see any downside or potential risk here performing this. Obviously this change takes only affect after rebooting Thingworx and also modifying the entities in that extension by uploading a newer version of it having the change intus also. In our tests it worked.

Thanks for answering,

Vincenzo