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Field Maps Designer won't save form changes

DanGruber

Using AGOL I created a map with one editable layer and then opened the map in Field Maps Designer. I created a very extensive form with many fields, groups, conditional visibility, etc. Early on I was able to save the form periodically to the map and the layer, but as I progressed both options were grayed out. I need to save the entire final form to the map and the layer to be able to use it in the field.

What am I doing wrong or overlooking? Is there some limit to the number of times a form can be saved or how large a form can be saved.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Dan

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JustinReynolds

There are multiple posts about this in the community. The truth is that it is easy to get Designer into an odd state where you are building away then notice you can't save when you are ready to. If you refresh the page everything after your last save will be gone. It usually happens to me if I continue to edit form elements too soon after a save. So every time I save the form I'm as patient as possible, waiting for the save popup to disappear. Then I make sure that the next change makes the save button go from gray to black... if not I got Designer into an odd state... if so I immediately refresh the page and all is good. Sometimes I forget an this happens.

What to do if you get to far down the road with changes that can't be saved?
I duplicate the tab and copy and paste everything over to the new tabs version until I have it all then save the form in the new tab and close the old tab. This of course can suck... but much better than trying to remember what I've done.

Good luck

DanGruber

Everyone - after consulting with ESRI technical support, here's the solution:

The problem was caused by some unknown corruption of the original map. The "save" function worked (almost) on a copy of the original map.
As suggested by Justin and reinforced by tech support, the solution is to save after every change to minimize potential loss of work. If for some reason the "save" icon is not active after a change is made, refresh the form. This happened to me once working on the copy of the original map; after the refresh, the "save" icon was active again through the remainder of the configuration process.
Note that making a copy of a map or layer is easy in AGOL: just save it under a different name and then open the copy in FM Designer. There's no need to go through the process Justin outlined.

Thanks to Justin and tech support.

Dan

DanGruber

Update to solution.

Interestingly, after successfully creating the form in FM Designer using the copy, working with tech support I discovered that the original also has the complete form and works okay in FM! Further, all the points that were captured using the layer copy in FM also were stored in the original.

I understood that a copy reflected changes to the original, but I did not realize that in this circumstance (where the copy was created using "save as") changes in the copy - both data and apparently form design - are reflected in the original.

This was very important since the original is a hosted layer that can be exported as an Excel for analysis and downloaded, whereas the copy cannot be.

Once again, tech support was very helpful.

Dan

All comments

JustinReynolds

DanGruber

Justin, I don't understand what you mean by duplicate the tab and copy and paste everything over to it. I'm on the Forms page in FM Designer and don't see any option for copying anything.

Do you simply mean start over, but using the procedure you outlined above?

I was waiting for the "saving" icon to complete for continuing, but after a while I'd make changes and the save options just weren't available.

Thanks,

Dan

JustinReynolds

To duplicate your browser tab. Right click the tab and choose duplicate.

There is nothing nice about the process. I put two browsers side by side and manually copy and paste everything from the most recent version (that you can't save) to the version you can save.

So I would copy and paste everything I couldn't save from the left side to the rights side in the example below. Some things can not be copied like groups and fields, but after creating them you can copy and paste your expressions, placeholder text, descriptions, etc.

This way you can see what needs to be done... the creative part is there on the left tab... the tab that contains the form you can't save.... you are just reproducing it on the right based on what is on the left... this is about your best option... otherwise it is reproducing everything that you can't save from scratch.

DanGruber

Everyone - after consulting with ESRI technical support, here's the solution:

The problem was caused by some unknown corruption of the original map. The "save" function worked (almost) on a copy of the original map.
As suggested by Justin and reinforced by tech support, the solution is to save after every change to minimize potential loss of work. If for some reason the "save" icon is not active after a change is made, refresh the form. This happened to me once working on the copy of the original map; after the refresh, the "save" icon was active again through the remainder of the configuration process.
Note that making a copy of a map or layer is easy in AGOL: just save it under a different name and then open the copy in FM Designer. There's no need to go through the process Justin outlined.

Thanks to Justin and tech support.

Dan

KellyDaire

A similar issue happened to me. I made several edits to a form and the Save icon was grayed out. I eventually managed to save it but it converted almost all of my fields to barcodes somehow, removed some fields from the form and removed my calculated visibility. I cant explain this and will likely need to recreate my form.

mikaël

What an age we live in! 2023! And this is a paid application... crazy.

DanGruber

Update to solution.

This was very important since the original is a hosted layer that can be exported as an Excel for analysis and downloaded, whereas the copy cannot be.

Once again, tech support was very helpful.

Dan

KerryWilcox

I'm having a slightly different problem where I can click SAVE button no problem but am getting this message:

"Unable to save your form changes.

Check the layer settings and confirm that you have the privileges required to make changes."

I am our account's Admin and have full editing privileges, I have checked the layers for edit settings, and have tried exporting and reimporting layers. This is a map and form that has worked well for over a year, so it feels like something has changed recently.

Once thing I noticed is there was a field "Month" that I had used without issue until today when I got a message saying it couldn't have the same field name as arcade expression, so I deleted the field and made a new one called "Month_name", but unfortunately still cannot edit the form in Field Maps Designer without getting the error above.

Anyone seen something like this recently?

-Kerry

DevRobinson

We are also having this exact issue!

LeePratt

We have this same issue. We noticed if we removed any one field out of any existing form then hit save it works. We then add the same field back on the form and we can still save as normal again. Not sure what is causing this. But it is a band-aid for us.

epckay

The solution for me was to simply make sure that our layers weren't grouped. Once I ungrouped the layers then saving was no longer an issue.

EMahabub

Hi Kerry,

Could you solve this issue? I have come across the same problem today when I tried to update some forms (tried to fix some typos). Just like you mentioned I am also logged-in as the owner (and administrator) of the item but receiving the same error message.

Emile

MariaGiarrusso

Also experiencing the same problem. Have all the necessary priviledges and cannot save edits to a form I have been working on successfully up until now.

KerryWilcox

Hi EMahabub--Still unable to save changes today. I am planning to call ESRI tech support today and will update you all.

EMahabub

Thanks so much @KerryWilcox ,

I had to reach out to ESRI Netherlands last week as we encountered other issues with forms. Even with admin privileges (and all fields being editable) we saw all the fields were greyed out and we couldn't edit anything. Then we got a workaround from ESRI Netherlands to make the fields editable again by adding a dot (.) to the form name. But now we came across this issue today.

KerryWilcox

I spoke to ESRI tech support today, and it turned out to be caused by two fields with names that are reserved keywords: Month and Time. I made a new copy of the layer, removed the problematic fields, and created new fields with different names and am now able to save changes to Field Maps form.

The tech suggested that this problem may be occurring more frequently after the latest update, and she sent me the link to these keywords to avoid here: https://support.esri.com/en-us/knowledge-base/faq-arcgis-online-and-portal-database-reserved-keywords-000030807

Hope this helps some of you!

-Kerry

KerryWilcox

Update: ESRI confirmed yesterday that this a known bug they are working to resolved:

BUG 000159299 : Field Maps Designer throws a generic error message "Unable to save your form changes Check the layer settings and confirm that you have the privileges required to make changes." if there are any errors in form elements.

EMahabub

Thanks for the update @KerryWilcox . I have also yesterday checked with ESRI Netherlands and today got the same answer. They also suggested me to report it to ESRI Inc as well so that the issue can be escalated.

WilliamMitry

I also had a similar issue. I resolved the issue by reducing my field name below 255 characters (long field name due to it being from a Survey123 form). Unfortunately the error doesn't show until you click on the field so no way to know why the error is occurring, just the "Unable to save your form changes Check the layer settings and confirm that you have the privileges required to make changes" message.

jhodny@Newark.de.us_CityOfNewarkDE

I had this issue occur in Field Maps on ArcGIS Enterprise 10.9.1 yesterday, and again today. I was saving after every edit I made, then I noticed at some point the save button was greyed out. I think this occurred after I added a new group. Noting a comment in an earlier post, I deleted the group, and the save button was restored. I did not save, but clicked the undo button, and restored my work in progress. I then saved my work. I did not lose my group or the edits I had made within the group.

JosephET

I just set up a Fieldmaps map with three editable layers in it - point/line/polygon.
The point and polygon layers set up forms without issue, but the line layer wouldn't save from the get go.

For me it turns out the issue was the Shape_Length field being included in the list of fields - once I removed that, I could save the form.

I don't quite understand why it had added itself, as the polygon layer didn't add either of Shape_Length or Shape_Area when generating the form - perhaps a little big Esri side..?

So long story short - perhaps try running through the fields one by one and see if any have the red asterisks in the Properties/Formatting pane on the right and remedying those, or removing the problem fields completely.

sam-gartrell

I've been up against an issue like this several times in the past week and finally found a solution. I know it's consistently the same beacuse every time I encounter it, I open dev tools and see the following in the console: "relative url not supporterd in web map." Expanding the details of the error shows a relative URL that apparently isn't working: "./4be84b828d7a439dabb7bf1f45d8e2a1."The error is always repeated once for every layer in the map that my FM app is pointed at, with a unique failing URL for each layer.

The solution that always works for me is to rename my web map, and then "Save As" the original name. Then point field maps at the new version of the map and off you go.

I hope they fix this soon--I'm wondering if the relative URL bug has to do with moving your web map to a new folder, where the relative URLs are severed from whatever root value is stored in the web map for their source.

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