topic Re: Blank rows in 'hidden' repeat in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Blank rows in 'hidden' repeat

ColinCampbell — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 15:37:50 GMT

I have a survey with a repeat in it that I've published from Connect but is being used as a web form. The repeat is optional and is triggered by people selecting a particular value on the main record. It is entirely hidden until that value is selected and this is done using a relevant statement in the 'begin repeat'.

This all looks great and works well in the web form, except for one thing. For records where the required value to unhide the repeat isn't entered a blank record in the repeat is still created.

I've seen some posts suggesting this is expected behaviour in slightly similar circumstances but I wondered if it was also the case here - or whether there was a way to stop the blank records from being created?

Re: Blank rows in 'hidden' repeat

JamesTedrick — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 18:07:31 GMT

Hi Colin,

I am not seeing the behavior you are describing with a simple form with repeat that is relevant based on a question. What types of questions are present in the repeat section?

Re: Blank rows in 'hidden' repeat

ColinCampbell — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 15:16:36 GMT

Hi James,

The repeat becomes relevant if the user selects one of two values in a single select (I've attached the .xlsx for the survey and you can see the live form here). The question 'Did you observe willow tit or marsh tit during your visit?' is the one that triggers the repeat (when you select 'Yes').

Just in case it helps, I've also attached a picture to show how the blank rows are appearing in the repeat.

Many thanks for your help looking into this.

Colin

Re: Blank rows in 'hidden' repeat

JamesTedrick — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 18:48:44 GMT

Hi Colin,

I'm able to reproduce the behavior you describe with your survey. It appears that we have an existing BUG for this behavior, BUG-000123943. I did a little more testing and it appears related to the presence of the geopoint question in the repeat.

Re: Blank rows in 'hidden' repeat

ColinCampbell — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 10:50:50 GMT

Hi James,

That's really helpful to know. Thanks again for looking into it.

Re: Blank rows in 'hidden' repeat

BrunoGomes_de_Souza — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 17:01:00 GMT

Hey James, I have the same problem.

But some repeats have no spatial information and occurs the same as described.

Re: Blank rows in 'hidden' repeat

HNoakes — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 20:10:35 GMT

I am also seeing this with no geopoint in the repeat section. I only have two text fields.

Is there any update on the Bug?

Re: Blank rows in 'hidden' repeat

DougBrowning — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 16:44:50 GMT

Also checking on update since have been 20 months now. We now have thousands of them. Getting harder to work around.

Thanks

Re: Blank rows in 'hidden' repeat

newwollyka — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 17:53:52 GMT

Same here. I have a household listing inside a unit listing. Empty households records are being created even if the unit is inhabitant and it is causing inconsistencies and headaches!

Re: Blank rows in 'hidden' repeat

SébastienLétourneau — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 14:54:24 GMT

Any updates for this bug? Reported since 2018 and very annoying.

Re: Blank rows in 'hidden' repeat

SFM_TravisBott — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 20:24:00 GMT

Holy moley it's be six years and this still isn't resolved:

https://support.esri.com/en-us/bug/if-a-relevant-field-is-configured-on-a-repeat-to-only-s-bug-000123943

I sure hope somebody can suggest a workaround.

Re: Blank rows in 'hidden' repeat

SFM_TravisBott — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 23:41:39 GMT

I'll reply to my own post here in case anyone comes looking since I found a workaround that seems to function in 3.20.63.

In my case I have nested photopoint repeat. There's a geopoint question, an image question, and a few others. The repeat has a relevant condition on a proceeding question, 'NeedPhotos' (${NeedPhotos} = 'Yes'). The NeedPhotos question is itself subject to a calculation...if a previous question (PositiveImpact_YN) is set to 'Yes' then the NeedPhotos question is automatically set to 'Yes' and photos are enforced.

I noticed this behavior: If in the course of the survey PositiveImpact_YN is set to 'No', the photo repeat does not appear (desired behavior) but it sends a ghost record (undesirable behavior). However, if I set PostiveImpact_YN to 'Yes' (photo repeat appear), then back to 'No' (photo repeat disappears), then it doesn't submit a ghost record. It's like the survey needed some positive affirmation do the right thing, and it fires appropriately and strips out the photo.

For my case I changed the NeedPhotos calculation and added a calculation in the 'Visible' column...so the user can't see it but behind the scene the 'NeedPhotos' gets defaulted to yes, but is invisible, and then the above chains of calculations from PositieImpact_YN will push it back to 'No', and the ghost record gets killed.