All fields are missing from my form.

  • SunbridgeInstitute
    Asked on June 6, 2016 at 4:37 PM

    Can you please check our form to see what might be wrong? When I try to edit it, I just get a blank grey box, and when users try to fill it out, nothing is showing up there either. We tried on several different computers, and it's the same on all of them. This is our busiest registration time, so I hope we can get this resolved very quickly. Thank you!

  • David JotForm Support Manager
    Replied on June 6, 2016 at 8:23 PM

    Upon checking your revision's history, it seems like you or someone who has access to that form or your account has deleted all the fields. You can revert this actions by using the revision history: https://www.jotform.com/help/294-How-to-view-form-revision-history 

    All fields are missing from my form Screenshot 20

    There you can revert to a version of your form where all the fields show up. Let us know if you need more help.

     

  • SunbridgeInstitute
    Replied on June 7, 2016 at 5:57 AM

    Thank you for helping me fix it. However, this is the second time this has happened on this particular form, where a great deal of data is lost all at once. I am the only one with access to this account, and I was sitting at my computer during the time this happened. I did go into the form today at about the time when "all the fields were deleted." I made one change to one of the fields--I selected some words out of a text field, and deleted them with the delete key. I saw only those words disappear, and then I saved the form. From this description, can you give an educated guess as to how I could accidentally delete all the fields from our form? I'm quite good with technical things and I'm very aware of my actions on a computer; I'm not the type to accidentally delete or move computer elements without being aware. This kind of result is of grave concern, as this form is our most important profit generator right now. I would really like to know how to avoid this in the future.

    Thank you if you can help.

  • SunbridgeInstitute
    Replied on June 7, 2016 at 6:03 AM

    Actually, I have one more recollection...I went into the form around the same time of day, and I was waiting for it to load so that I could see the "publish" button at the top. It was taking forever to load, but all I wanted was to see that button, to get the link. The screen was blank. I was able to see the save button, so I hit that, thinking perhaps that would stop whatever was hanging up the form, but it did not help. I'm thinking this may have been when the problem happened. But I still can't figure out how I could have accidentally deleted everything. I hope that you can figure it out from my description, to help me avoid it in the future. Thanks again.

  • jonathan
    Replied on June 7, 2016 at 9:02 AM

    Due to the number of fields and Conditions that your form https://www.jotform.com/60143546937964 have, it is possible that the Autosave function of the Form Builder is hanging up. This is more noticeable if there are a lot of simultaneous process happening.

    All fields are missing from my form Screenshot 30

    What you can try do is to disable the Autosave process of the Form Builder temporarily every time you are working on this form. You can do manual save instead before you do another process (i.e. Publishing)

    See the image below for guide on how you can disable the Autosave option.

    All fields are missing from my form Screenshot 41

     

    The autosave will revert to auto when you close your browser and relogin to the Form Builder again.

    For now, you can use the Revision History tool to revert your form to the last saved point that is working. Then, you can start the process I suggested when you are working on this form on the Form Builder.

    Let us know if this did not make any difference and if issue persist.

     

     

  • SunbridgeInstitute
    Replied on June 7, 2016 at 9:36 AM

    I appreciate your suggestion, and I will do this from now on. However, I'm still alarmed at how I was able to accidentally delete all of the fields from the form. Even if I TRIED to delete all the fields in the form, I think it would take quite a while and quite a lot of work. How did I do that in one instant without even realizing it? Whatever this magical trick for mass deleting is, I want to make sure I don't accidentally do it again. Thank you!

  • jonathan
    Replied on June 7, 2016 at 10:09 AM

    ...I'm still alarmed at how I was able to accidentally delete all of the fields from the form

    It is highly possible that the fields were not being deleted at all. 

    I have encounter the similar case before and from what I had observed, the fields were not being deleted. They only disappear on the form because when the Autosave kick-in, the process get aborted or timed out, hang up or locked up. Like it was in suspended animation...

    When the Autosave is in suspended mode, it will fail to regenerate the fields on the form during its save process. So what happens now is, all or most of the fields will disappear on the form's latest version.

    If you check the revision of the form (the last saved version), you can see that the fields were all there.

    The process I suggested of manually saving will help prevent triggering the autosave. You have to manually save first.. wait for the Save to complete so that all the fields will be properly generated again.

    Hope this help in understanding the scenario.

    Don't hesitate to contact us again anytime if you need further assistance.