Well I think I have a workaround for the mergeChunks problem.
I think this is somewhere related to a Bson de/serialization problem
I’ve mounted a sharded database with a simpler partition key : {action:1}
The action values are integers
if I execute a command like this one in a mongo shell or in Robo3T :
db.adminCommand( {
mergeChunks: "test.cases",
bounds: [ {actionId:191)},
{actionId:250)} ]
} )
Then the command fails on a DuplicateKey error
Now if I execute a script like this one
db.getSiblingDB("config").chunks.find({ns : 'test.cases', min:{actionId:191}}).forEach(function(chunk) {chunk1=chunk;});
db.getSiblingDB("config").chunks.find({ns : 'test.cases', min:{actionId:250}}).forEach(function(chunk) {chunk2=chunk;});
db.adminCommand( { mergeChunks : 'softbridge.cases' , bounds:[chunk1.min,chunk2.min]});
Then the execution is OK.
I think there is at least a documentation bug here