Troubleshooting and Repairing a Single Form

Generally, it’s pretty simple

But it’s the ones that aren’t simple that we’ll remember

 

 

The first is where the software’s program tab isn’t visible in Word’s menu bar. For that, we’ll send you over to the appropriate section on the Early Stages page for suggestions on how to fix the problem.

Tab Missing

The rest of this page deals with this single issue

The program once worked but suddenly none of the program’s major commands work on any  form.

Step by Step Diagnostics

The problem when the Questionnaire, Save/Load, and Fill commands don’t work is likely to be a Path issue. If it’s a new issue, what has changed with your computer (in Word or the Operating System)?

 

The Check Form Tool

The Check Form tool is possibly the most valuable aid in TheFormTool family. It performs eight checks of  a document, providing information about problems big and little. When there’s a problem we always, always use the Check Form tool first. We also use it frequently when developing forms, just to check the integrity and catch problems early

The Asterisk*

When you click Fill, the program starts to work but then stops midway through. What to do?

The Simple Tests

    1. First, recognize that there’s a high probability that this particular form is now corrupt and not to be trusted. DO NOT save it if there is any chance of overwriting the copy that’s been saved previously.
    2. The cursor may have stopped at the problem spot so make a note of that location and take a moment to look around at a nearby Field, List, or Conditions.
    3. Look for an new asterisk. The program will often mark its failed item with an asterisk.

Open the copy of the form previously saved in memory and run the Check Form tool on it.

The Tougher Approach

We call this Divide and Discover. Fortunately, it sounds much worse than it is and should take less than ten minutes.

Backup the copy previously saved in memory so as to prevent an accidental overwrite problem

    1. Open the copy and delete one-half the form, while keeping the Questionnaire intact
    2. Click Fill to test the remaining half
    3. If it fails, make another copy of the form in memory, delete the same half you did last time, then delete one half of that.
    4. Repeat until you’ve identified the issue.
    5. Fix the problem

If the one-half Form in Step One, above, works

    1. Open a copy of the saved Form and delete the other half, the one you’ve already tested. Repeat the process until you’ve identified the issue.
    2. Fix the problem.
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Special Cases

The majority of issues we see where nothing is working are typically caused by user issues or by environmental problems involving virtual servers like Dropbox, Box, or Azure. Virtual servers can be useful tools when users want to share our programs’ saved Questionnaires, Answers or other internal program files but don’t have a physical network.Their own default paths can cause surprise connectivity issues. Dealing with them is not particularly difficult, but they do need special handling. The Knowledge Base has good articles on managing them at Using Dropbox, Box or OneDrive as a virtual network or Citrix Installations.

We are particularly unimpressed with Box and cannot recommend it.

Knowledge Base