Solved: Blank row add screen?!

Steve · 12-26-2020 08:54 AM

Any idea what’s going on here? For one specific table, if I click on the Add button, I’m taken to a blank screen, without even a back button.

No other tables affected. Default system-generated add button, no security filter, default table update settings. Tried deleting system-generated form view. Recreated table view. Copied app. Hard-reloaded app editor.

(no audio)

Steve

Can’t delete system-generated actions! Though you can system-generated views…

Yep. I managed to track it down and fix it. The problem was an Initial value expression for a column of the affected table. The expression was of the form:

orderby(
  ifs(
    ifs(
      ...
    ),
      list(...)
  ),
  ...
)

I was trying to produce a populated list of references only if a complex set of conditions was met, then order the result. The fix was to explicitly produce an empty list if the conditions were not met:

orderby(
  ifs(
    ifs(
      ...
    ),
      list(...)
    true,
      list()
  ),
  ...
)

So there’s either a bug with IFS() or with ORDERBY(). My money’s on IFS().

View solution in original post

MultiTech

Hmmm… the only time I’ve seen things like that were when formulas were missing things - but I was doing very non-standard things with the formula. (Lots of nesting of quotes (single and double) with {curely brackets} and /forward slashes//

It was the combination of these special characters that interfered with AppSheet’s internal code and caused strange things like what you’re seeing.

But a system generated action doing that… sounds like something happened during the app generation process - something got corrupted.

Very strange… damn gremlins

(The one tap dancing on the keyboard )

Maybe try deleting the system generated Add action - maybe it’s something messed up in there.

Can you LinkToForm() and have things still work?

Steve

Can’t delete system-generated actions! Though you can system-generated views…

Yep. I managed to track it down and fix it. The problem was an Initial value expression for a column of the affected table. The expression was of the form:

orderby(
  ifs(
    ifs(
      ...
    ),
      list(...)
  ),
  ...
)

I was trying to produce a populated list of references only if a complex set of conditions was met, then order the result. The fix was to explicitly produce an empty list if the conditions were not met:

orderby(
  ifs(
    ifs(
      ...
    ),
      list(...)
    true,
      list()
  ),
  ...
)

So there’s either a bug with IFS() or with ORDERBY(). My money’s on IFS().