Stop ArcGIS Pro jumbling Shapefile cell values when editing sequentially

[MJChurchill]

When editing cells sequentially in a Shapefile table, ArcGIS Pro will begin to fail to correctly recognize what should be entered in the cell. It will fail to recognize keystrokes, leave characters behind from the previous cell value, enter characters out of order, and will even jump to other cells in the same column (usually previous cells). This behaviour also occurs when editing in the attributes pane when you are hitting enter to get to the next field then start typing.

Steps to create the issue:

1. Load a Shapefile (and optionally another layer or layers) into an ArcGIS Pro(2.6.x) map.

2. Turn on labels for any of the layers and zoom the map so a certain number of labels are visible(perhaps as few as 20 but this may depend on your computer's speed, how many layers you have, how many have labels turned on, perhaps even the number of characters in the labels, etc.)

3. Open the attribute table of the Shapefile.

4. Begin editing by typing in a cell then hitting enter to get to the next record and do that repeatedly without pausing for more that a second or two between hitting enter and beginning to type in the next cell.

(Or, select a feature and open the attributes pane and begin editing fields by typing then hitting then typing, etc. to edit multiple fields for the record. This assumes of course that there are at least several fields in the table.)

This issue occurs with ArcGIS Pro 2.6.x (I am currently at 2.6.2 but began noticing this issue at least at 2.6.0). It has likely been present since the ability to edit in this way was added. (This functionality was requested in an idea in 2017 by Nicholas McNamara.) Also see Rich Emerson's idea which seems related ("Do not refresh screen if editing an attribute not connected to display properties")

My system info, in case it is pertinent: Windows 10 Pro, 16GB memory; 64-bit; Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7500U CPU @ 2.7GHz 2.90GHz

The workarounds for this issue are pretty simple: just turn off labels or pause drawing while editing. However, it is annoying and you can end up with weird values in your data if you don't immediately notice it's happening. (Thankfully I don't generally work with important dollar figures or planning measurements.)

This is more of a bug than an idea but Esri support recommended I post it here.

[KoryKramer]

Hi MJ Churchill‌ I agree that this does sound like a bug and is not appropriate as an idea.  I apologize that you were directed to submit it as an idea.

I looked into the support case and see that ultimately a bug was logged.  That may actually be a duplicate of BUG-000125106: When quickly editing a table using Enter, the cursor.. which is marked as fixed in ArcGIS Pro 2.7, the next release coming in Dec 2020/Jan 2021. 

We'll leave this idea here as a placeholder so that you can test the same workflow when you're able to upgrade to 2.7.

Thank you.

[MJChurchill]

Thanks Kory,

I took a look at BUG-000125106 and I agree, it looks like the same bug (with the addition of a few extra symptoms and workaround of turning off labels/pausing display).

Thanks for your quick response!

Regards,

M.J. Churchill

[KoryKramer]

Hi @MJChurchill 

I wanted to follow up to let you know that we did take another look at this now that Pro 2.7 is available and unfortunately it appears that the work done has not resolved what you're reporting here.  Since this is a bug and is being tracked as BUG-000135116, I'll be closing this idea.  You're already attached to that bug so you'll be able to track and manage it through the technical support system.

Thank you!

[DonnaMoreau]

Sorry to inform, but this literally just happened to me ten minutes ago. I'm in Pro version 2.7.3. I had three records selected. I typed 2021 in the first records field, 2020 in the second record, which switched to 0202, and the third record 2019, which turned into 19. All I did was click in the empty cell (for each record) one time. No double clicking, no tabbing and no enter button used.

[DonnaMoreau]

Whoops, didn't read far enough down. Sorry!

[KoryKramer]

Here is a link to the open bug: https://support.esri.com/en/bugs/nimbus/QlVHLTAwMDEzNTExNg==

Please click Subscribe which will set you up for notifications and increment the count of affected customers to increase its priority. 

Thank you.

[DonnaMoreau]

Thank you!

[TiffanyPuett]

I have been seeing the same behavior in Feature classes as well going back several versions of Pro now...I'm currently on 2.9. In my experience, editing in the attributes window is just slow and clunky. Every time I click in a field to edit a value, I almost have to click it twice to get it to register my keyboard input. It does seem to "flow" slightly better when going from field to field using the Enter key but not always. From time to time, I am still having experiences, described similarly as above. I did not realize that it may be related to labels so I will test this next time...too bad we can't vote this one up. I don't feel like the bug is really being addressed or that the scope is way too large to wrap the development around.