InfoPath Dev

Hello everyone, We are experiencing a problem with Infopath 2007, we cannot add data connections to forms we are editing or creating, this even includes data connection to a new form. We also cannot select to submit something on a command button. We can still use infopath 2003 to add data connections and to select submit on a command button however it makes testing the forms extremely difficult. I am not too sure what happened at first it was just my computer that couldnt, about 2 days later my coworker lost the ability and then a few days after that my boss no longer could. I am sure an update is involved but i have not been able to find a solution thus far. Thankyou in advance.

I would guess it has something to do with Internet Explorer. Data connections often rely on its security and connectivity.

My experience with the data connection wizard is that it will silently fail if you have a low memory situation. Try rebooting and see if that fixes it.

Thanks for the input, I have gone through just about everything in internet explorer and disabled or enabled anything and everything which might impact data connections with no luck so far. Also I have reinstalled my XP install, Installed Vista and the problem is still there. I have gone to random computers in our office logged in as administrator(both local and network) and tried to add data connections with no luck. I guess maybe i will have to wait for a office 2007 update or something along those lines. The data connections in forms still work, and if i open them form in Infopath 2003 i can add new data connections, just it is a pain to convert all of our forms to 2003 and the inherit problems of running 2 versions of Infopath at the same time.

Hi again,

This is a crazy situation. There must be some bug caused by this. We should report it to Microsoft. I have this feeling that you have some strange domain setup which is causing the problem. Are you logging into the domain? Are the data connections in the domain? I've seen it fail silently perhaps 20 times, but it always works when I close something down. That's all I know. This is worth reporting to MS though.

 

Hello,

Sorry for the incredibly late reply, I was absolutely flat out at the end of the year and just came back from holidays.

 There is nothing strange about our domain set up, and yes we are logging into the domain. The data connections are located in the same domain as well but i suppose that doesnt really matter because we can not create them at all.

 Prehaps i will report this to microsoft, are you aware of any specific email address i should be contacting?

 

Regards

 

Chris

Hi Chris,

I am sending e-mail to my contacts at Microsoft and asking them to look at this thread. Thank you for posting! :)

Chris, can you be more specific about what type of data connection you're trying to create?  For example, does this fail when simply trying to load an XML file, or is this a database, web service, SharePoint list... 

Hello Nick,

 I am trying to create data connections to an access database. Just say I try and open a new form template the only options it shows is blank form, or XML or Schema. The other options which used to be there which i believe were access database, SQL, web service, and sharepoint list are not there.

 Regards

 Chris 

Aha.  Sounds like you managed to get your default project type set to "Template Part"

On the Design a Form Template dialog, change your project type from "Template Part" to "Form Template" under "Design a new:".  Template parts can only be based on static schemas, not on dynamic data connections.

Hello Nick,

 Sorry to dissapoint, but Form template is selected as the project type.

Regards

Chris

Chris, there is one other option that has occurred to me.  InfoPath 2007 adds the ability for a network admin to use group policy to remove the ability to connect to external data.  If you aren't in Template Part mode, then it's possible that data connections have been disabed using group policy.

 Check under the following registry key:

           HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\InfoPath\Designer\RestrictedFeatures

See whether you have any of the following values:

DataConnectionAllowed

DataConnectionXmlAllowed

DataConnectionDatabaseAllowed
DataConnectionWebServiceAllowed
DataConnectionSharePointAllowed
DataConnectionDCLAllowed

 If you do, then your network admin has likely disabled these features for InfoPath and you should contact them.

 

Hello nick,

 Jackpot, those were in there and once we deleted them we were able to access the missing data connections. I looked in our group policies and there was nothing in there. After that i looked in the custom file created by the OCT and they were in there under restricted settings. I dont know why anyone would have put them there but they are now removed, I am guessing someone either put enabled instead of disabled or misread it.  I feel like kicking myself for not picking that up. However I cant work out why it worked in the first place, and from memory we were reinstalling office in a attempt to fix the problem. I guess some things are best left a mystery. :)

 Thankyou so much for your assistance.

Booyah!  I'm glad that worked 'cause I was fresh out of ideas.  (I really thought I'd nailed it with the Template Parts thing, but second time's the charm!)