Hi! @Josh and @Kal_Lam and anyone else who understands how DDA works in the back-end!
I’ve got a conundrum, and I’m wondering if you can help me out
I’m using Dynamic Data Attachments, with a couple of unique elements:
- the parent form has a series of ‘optional’ label IDs entered, across a few different groupings (e.g., could be male/female, powder/non-powder, or atypical - any combination of those could be labelled, for example, given a Label ID).
- The child form then essentially ‘scans’ the Label ID, and then should tell the user what is included within that label.
However, what’s happening right now is that when I open the child form, the whole form is deploying immediately, and my ‘relevant’ column ceases to work. So, for example, I have an error message that should only appear when if the label ID is scanned (i.e., not blank) and does not match the format of a label ID. However, on opening the form, that error message appears right away. I’ve experimented with all kinds of relevants, but nothing changes in the form. So, something is rendering the entire column to not work.
(When uploading the form to ODK Validate, no issues with the form.)
And the second big problem, is that an error message appears saying there’s an indexed-repeat issue. Now, I’ve dealt with this before, and know that this error appears when an ID key is repeated in the lookup column. But what it’s doing is throwing this error when opening the form, and it’s matching the ‘blank’ value (before anything is scanned) to multiple ‘blank’ values in the lookup form.
In testing, this form worked. It’s only after being deployed for the pilot test in the field that this error started to happen.
So that led me to test a couple other things:
- could I replicate this issue in a similar dummy set of forms, where I’m trying to match values, and have multiple blanks in the lookup column? (result - this does not throw an error; it looks like blanks are allowed in the lookup column)
- could I simplify the form down to a point where I could pinpoint the error (result - I’ve simplified it down to only about 4 lines, and know where the error is coming from, and still looks like it’s coming from repeated blanks and the relevant being ignored).
Now, if you actually scan a Label ID, the form does work. The DDA is setup correctly and is functioning well. But the problem is that upon opening the form, you just get red error messages and error popups happening BEFORE a label ID has been scanned, which is very offputting for the team - but it also makes me nervous because I can’t pinpoint why it’s happening, what the error is, as I can’t replicate it thus far.
It’s led me to believe that in some way the error may be coming from some way the child form is interacting with the DATA of the parent form, but without being able to replicate it, I don’t know what’s going on. The only thing that works is to delete the rows where the ‘blank’ values are in the lookup column. However, once again, based on my dummy testing, blank values shouldn’t cause an error, so… I’m going around in circles.
Other things I tested:
- deleting all settings, extra tabs, choices, from the form, deleting all extra columns and rows, making sure there’s nothing else hanging out in the form that’s causing this error.
- disconnecting and reconnecting the parent and child form.
- putting the error messages, etc, on a second page (field-list) after the barcode scanning, to give the user the opportunity to scan the label before errors appear, but this still throws the indexed-repeat error when entering the form
Other ideas I’ve thought about overnight to test:
- the dummy form tests a lookup column two groups deep, whereas the real form uses a lookup that’s three groups deep
- length of the names used in the lookup
Or, I’m wondering, because these worked in testing (in May) and don’t work anymore, was there any update on the backend (a release) that would cause an error like this?
What I’m attaching here:
The two dummy forms (that work)
DDA Blank Test 2.xlsx (11.2 KB)
aPohGDPZo9F7CMtndpuUrN.xlsx (11.1 KB)
The child form (that causes the error).
BF_PMB_SWN_PROCESSING_2_v3testeroony8.xlsx (18.2 KB)
(You can see my mental capacity at this stage has run out…I went through naming phases of ‘test, test1, test2’, then moved to ‘testgroup, testgroup1, etc’…now I’ve just landed on ‘testeroony’, lol).
In order to understand the error, I think seeing the backend data might be necessary, so if you need to see anything else, please let me know and I’ll try to record a video or something. But help pointing me in the right direction would be very helpful! If I can figure anything else out, I’ll post here.
This is the image of the lookup column that’s causing errors:
These are 2 pics of the image getting in Collect:
(You can see the row numbers match up to the rows containing blanks)
Thanks for any support you can offer!
Janna