I am drawing a blank on what to do. My company wanted me to connect our Project Numbers to our SQL database and get rid of the old Project Number field which was just a single choice list with every project number known to man. I have successfully connected the new field and upon removing the old one I have ran into some problems.
Transition validators.
There are validations set in place and I have simply removed the project number field from it on every project that is requiring it during this specific transition. I have made sure to not only update but publish this change. Upon refreshing and re-indexing the issue is still present. I will share a picture. Note: The second Project Number field is the correct SQL field. The first one is the culprit and I have added it back in the meantime so we can still process our tasks like normal. If I enter a project number into the first field it will work as normal. Neither of these fields are required in the field configurations nor on the validation screen. I am sharing more pics below for context.

This is the only screen that is asking that the project number field be required.

Here is the validator (Project Field is removed as it should be). Our maintenance has expired could that be an issue? I do have Data Center set up, but we have not given everyone the ok yet as we are still waiting for IT to finish up some server related things in the background.

Just so I am doing my due diligence, here is the field config we share with all of our projects. None of these fields are required at all.

I hope I am just overlooking something. I would appreciate any help and hopefully I did not miss the solution to this. I apologize if so.