InfoPath Dev

Hi--I have a weird one. I have a (InfoPath 2003) form that I can't fill out some items on--text boxes, file attachment control, etc. These are not Read Only, and, in fact, work fine in Preview mode. They also work on some machines and not on others--On my desktop system I cannot fill out these controls. On my laptop, I can. Most of my users can use the form just fine, one or two can't. The ones who can't, if I open the form in design mode on their machines, and then open a copy to fill out, everything works correctly. If I close the copy that is open in design mode....Yup, it stops working again.

Any thoughts on what I might be missing? As usual, I'd hate to start all over...this one is a bear.

Thanks!

Oh, I just found one more thing--If I open the form once to fill out and then open another copy, the second copy works correctly....

Sounds like the "locked" fields are missing from the data source. If you can, find a form where its not working and save out the XML to it. See if those "locked" fields are even present in the XML. My guess is that they are not. So, if that is the case, you then need to figure out WHY they are not present and resolve that issue.

Interesting thought. I did that, openened the form, verified I couldn't fill out the fields that have been causing the trouble, and saved it. Opened up the XML file in a text editor....and the fields were there. Opened it up again in InfoPath, and could fill it out. Then I opened a new copy, put it in design mode, extracted the form files. Opened that XML up, and again, the fields were there. You are right, that would make sense as to why certain fields were locked...but that isn't it in this case. One other thing I had tried was toggling the data binding (binding to a different node, saving, checking it, and, if it worked, rebinding to the original node). For some of the fields I am having trouble with, this helped. For others, it didn't.

Thanks for your suggestions, though, I really appreciate them.

I'm out of ideas for this one. I wish you luck on it.

I would look at conditional rules based on user role. I would also look at whether or not the InfoPath version was an evaluation version that had expired.

Thanks--great ideas. The form has no user roles, however and we have InfoPath with our enterpise MS license agreement, so expiration doesn't come into play.

For now, I am using my work around--if the form is opened and doesn't work correctly, opening a second copy will make the second copy work correctly. I am also seriously thinking of using this as an excuse to take the time to redesign the darned thing--it is more complex than it needs to be and it would be easier to work with if I gave it an overhaul.

The thing is, though, I don't like being stumped. And I'd really like to know why I am having this trouble with it. It seems to be machine specific--I've logged onto machines where it doesn't work correctly using other user profiles and it still fails to work correctly. Yet on other machines, it is just fine. We have Windows XP and Office 2003 on almost all our systems and definitely on the ones where I've had this trouble.

I am absolutely flummoxed.

I really appreciate your thoughts and suggestions, both of you, and greatly value this site as a resource.