Random data corruption? Or just random?

[yumei]

Earlier today, I happened to look at the (source) spreadsheets for the app I've been working on, and I noticed a few blank cells that shouldn't have been blank. I opened up the Edit view to one of the affected records and saw that the cells that were supposed to be blank had data in them. So I did a "Save" without modifying the record. After the save, the record's previously blank cells in the spreadsheet got miraculously populated. I went through the motions with a few other records, same results.

This evening, another weird data alteration took place--see photos. The name "Sponge Bob" becomes "33c4c0a1 Bob" in both the spreadsheet and the app. 

If I were randomly adding data in the spreadsheet, I wouldn't be surprised. Deleting a related record may lead to weird behavior. But basic CRUD operations shouldn't lead to record being halfway altered (eg "first_name" field becomes "33c4c0a1", but "last_name" field untouched. My earlier encounters indicate that all the related data was intact, but somehow I had to do a edit-less Edit and Save to recover the linked data.

What's going on?

Table ViewDetail View of the recordSource table-Google Sheet

[scott192]

Possibly an App where the table has not been regenerated after you made some column changes?  This is easy to forget especially if you have more than a few apps all sharing the same data sources.

[yumei]

Neither scenario applies, unless data change requires table regeneration. I was tempted to create two apps for the same set of tables, but decided not to risk it.

[scott192]

Google Sheets has a cell edit history that you can view and see exactly what has been happening inside your sheet.

Right click the cell with the anomalous data inside it and choose 'Show Edit History'...what does it tell you?

[yumei]

The edit history for this one cell simply shows "Sponge"  (first_name) replaced by "33c4c0a1" (ppl_id). The weird thing is, right now, without anything having been changed since I posted, the "Edit" window shows the correct information. I am certain that, if I just clicked on "Save"--without making any changes, The weird concatenation would self-correct. I would like to know how to determine where the stability comes from. I have been using dummy data and thought we were getting close to trying out with real data. This worries me.

[scott192]

Just check something out for me...does you field have a Formula and also an Initial Value set?

If it does, can you check to see whether the 'Reset on Edit' flag is ticked?

[yumei]

Two tables are involved: "ppl" and "enrollment". No formula in any of fields in "ppl", but "ID" has "UNIQUEID" for initial value. "Edit" is checked. What is "Reset"?

"enrollment" table Ref's the "ppl" table and isn't displayed on Form view:

[scott192]

I can see that first_name and last_name have Formulas in them.  Can you check the field definition and see the status of the 'Reset on edit?' section?

If these are ticked then this is a replication of a 'bug' / 'works as expected' problem I had a while back and went through a lot of tech support.  I'll wait for your reply though as I could be well off base!

[yumei]

No--they are not. Should they? 

[scott192 · Accepted solution]

If it was turned on it could explain things...but it isn't.

I still think the cell history of the google sheet will tell you all you need to know.  It will give you exact date and time when values were altered.  You can use these datetimes to search in the Audit History of your app for changes that happen around those times and see where those changes are being intitiated from...

[yumei]

I learned a few things through this exchange-as good as getting a fix, so I'll mark it as resolved. Thanks! I'll keep looking out for recurrences. 

[1minManager]

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@yumei wrote:

I opened up the Edit view to one of the affected records and saw that the cells that were supposed to be blank had data in them. So I did a "Save" without modifying the record. After the save, the record's previously blank cells in the spreadsheet got miraculously populated. I went through the motions with a few other records, same results.

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Sounds like those were using an App Formula.  So either as @scott192 said, these rows where created before the App Formula was added.  Or your app formula referes to data that didn't exist when that row was last saved.

[1minManager]

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@yumei wrote:

This evening, another weird data alteration took place--see photos. The name "Sponge Bob" becomes "33c4c0a1 Bob" in both the spreadsheet and the app. 

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So 33c4c0a1 looks very much like what you'd get from UniqueID().  So my guess is in that column you've got an app formula in there using something like CONCATENATE(UniqueID()," ",[Name Column])

Simon@1minManager.com

[yumei]

It did look like the product of concatenation, except the key was ID and _ComputedName--which is "first_name+last_name"-- was the label. And the concatenation used "ID+last_name". Weird.

The id column had already been formatted to be plain text.