Publishing blocked by “Experimental Editor Settings” although no experimental feature is enabled

Development Programming & Scripting C++
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Summary
I can’t publish my island. The private version validation on the Creator Portal always fails on “Experimental Features – Experimental Editor Settings”, but no experimental feature is enabled in my project, and the UEFN publish report says everything is fine.

Island / project

  • Island code: 3117-8090-0034 (“+1 VENOM EVOLUTION”)
  • Project ID: 0d14f2a6-cf40-4774-9147-e32f9f8642e4
  • UEFN / Fortnite version: 43.00
  • Affected private versions: 8199-1480-7825 and all newer ones

Steps to reproduce

  1. Open the project in UEFN, run a memory calculation, create a private version.
  2. UEFN publish report: “Publish Validation: Success – ready to publish” (Experimental features: no issue detected, memory 41/300 MiB).
  3. On the Creator Portal, select this private version and click “Create release”.
  4. Validation fails: “Experimental Features – you can’t publish while these experimental features are enabled: Experimental Editor Settings”.

What I already checked / tried

  • Project Settings: every option under “Experimental Access” and “Beta Access” is unchecked (Scene Graph System, Animation Scene Graph, Scene Graph experimental features, Python project scripts, Control Rig in Verse, Gaussian Splats, Custom inventory).
  • The ExperimentalSettings.json generated at upload lists all 10 experimental settings with “bIsEnabled”: false.
  • Scene Graph was enabled earlier in this project. I disabled it, restarted UEFN, removed all Verse code using it, deleted and re-created every asset made while it was enabled, and rebuilt the level.
  • I removed a custom animation that pulled in the ControlRig plugin.
  • I toggled the experimental options off/on/off and restarted UEFN.
  • Several new private versions were uploaded after each change. All of them pass in UEFN and fail on the portal.

Expected
The portal validation should match the UEFN report (no experimental features), so the version can be published.

Question
Is there a server-side flag stored on this project from when Scene Graph was enabled? How can I clear it without creating a new project and losing my island code?

Thanks for your help!