i deleted some required profile fields in wp-admin. now new members cant sign up

hi new to this. so glad this forum exists. i have a buddypress/wordpress site.

what happened: i deleted a few required fields in users/profile fields thinking i was just making signup form less burdensome.

now when members fill out sign up form and click submit, theyre getting message to fill out required fields. but all current fields are filled out.

if i had to guess, deleting the profile fields from admin didn’t completely remove from somewhere else on site (database?) and now signup is stalled.

can anyone suggest how to fix? where is this hardcoded if in fact it is?

thank you very much.