Anyone else experience 'random' behaviour?

darren.james7518 · 2022-04-02T11:53:10.715Z

UPDATE: This post related to an issue I had, it turned out my code was fine but one minute it didn’t work and the next it did. I’ve left the thread in tact but the end result was that after an hour trying to get it to work, I walked home, opened laptop and it worked. I am curious whether others had similar experiences, if it’s a type of delay within Bubble or if I am doing something wrong.

ORIGINAL POST:

Since starting with Bubble this problem has plagued me.

If I update the database using a button which is on the page, I can refer to Parent group which is simple. If, however, I have a drop down link in a
floating group, I have to refer to the page and that’s where things go wrong for me.

Look at this example.

When a user saves an invoice, I save the status (draft, send, paid).

21085×542 37.5 KB

If I put the save button on the Parent group page, the status is updated correctly.

this works easy

But, if I update the status from a drop down link, it won’t work.

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I am referring to the groupcreate-invoice (that is like a page for my SPA) but the database is not updating.

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This should update the database;

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What makes this way more infuriating is that it was fine yesterday. How can we code if changes work sometimes and not others?

jps1006 · 2022-04-02T12:13:00.805Z

Make sure you’re loading the invoice into the page element that you’re referring to. Although I use the parent group reference very often, always be mindful of where the DB item is loaded, not just declaring its type.
Try this: what is the name of the button’s parent group that is working (that’s likely where the proper invoice reference resides) ? from the floating group WF that’s giving you trouble, use the name of that group instead of a “parent group” reference.

in you’re last pic, you should be on the “app data” tab?

darren.james7518 · 2022-04-02T12:15:51.962Z

jps1006:

what is the name of the button’s parent group that is working (that’s likely where the proper invoice reference resides)

It is create-invoice.

I have a single page app so I have one page and lots of groups. This should be so easy, the group name is create-invoice. If I have a button on that group I can refer to the Parent group, but if I am not on the group and refer to create-invoice's invoice it doesn’t work.

darren.james7518 · 2022-04-02T12:33:33.170Z

OMG, now it works. I didn’t change anything.

I was in Pret coffee shop, spent a good hour trying to fix this. Walked home, opened laptop and now it works. I am certain Bubble just doesn’t work sometimes because my app’s code didn’t change from when I posted this. This is so frustrating because I am never sure if my code is wrong.

I could do screen shots right now and they would look identical to the ones already posted. Grrrr!

UPDATE: and now it doesn’t work again. Not sure if I can continue with Bubble, it’s really buggy and causes a lot of stress.

darren.james7518 · 2022-04-02T13:00:11.788Z

Now, even if I put the save button on the group itself the Status is not updating, it is empty in the DB. What is going on? I have checked Bubble’s status and it reports no issues. I’m so confused and can’t believe I’ve spent almost 4 hours trying to update a simple Status in the DB.

Screenshot 2022-04-02 135853976×383 20.1 KB

adamhholmes · 2022-04-02T13:38:11.059Z

darren.james7518:

Status is not updating, it is empty in the DB

What do you mean by that? Looking at your database it seems to be working fine (all the invoices have a status).

darren.james7518 · 2022-04-02T14:30:55.518Z

This doesn’t surprise me, as I said it is random. I have just created another invoice and this time is does not have a status … in 5 minutes time I may create another one and it will have a status. Probably Bubble needs to look into this.

Screenshot 2022-04-02 1358531264×529 46.7 KB

adamhholmes · 2022-04-02T15:14:22.506Z

Probably Bubble needs to look into this.

I suspect it’s not a Bubble issue, but rather a user error on your part (I’d bet money on it).

Take some time to double-check everything (use the debugger it will literally show you what you’re doing wrong) - then if you’re certain it’s not you then submit a detailed bug report to Bubble.

darren.james7518 · 2022-04-02T15:19:55.040Z

Thanks Adam, I will do that. I have discovered something else which may be related and give me a clue.

I noticed that the invoice preview was not showing the pdf invoice, this was all sorted but now (randomly) its’s broken. The reason I found was that the DB isn’t saving the invoice related to the PDF:

invoice1162×492 36.4 KB

So I added this to the workflow;

But it made no difference. I am starting to think the issues all relate to me trying to refer to the group create-invoice. I don’t know what the issue is but that is the common thread.

Just seen that my backup history has all been deleted apart from the last few days.

adamhholmes · 2022-04-02T15:23:39.589Z

That image (make changes to invoice) makes no sense… it’s a circular reference…

i.e. your setting a value to itself - which is illogical, makes no sense, and wont actually do anything (how could it?).

I’m not sure what you’re trying to do here, but that’s not doing anything at all.

adamhholmes · 2022-04-02T15:25:06.127Z

darren.james7518:

apart from the last few days.

How many days?

darren.james7518 · 2022-04-02T15:29:47.529Z

I have removed this comment because I think it was confusing the thread.

darren.james7518 · 2022-04-02T15:31:50.114Z

adamhholmes:

How many days?

6 days

adamhholmes · 2022-04-02T15:35:43.568Z

darren.james7518:

How can I make sure the invoice is filled out so the PDF is related to a specific invoice?

You need to set it in a workflow (either when you create the PDF, or make changes to it)

The image you showed above was about changing an invoice- nothing to wo with changing a PDF

6 days

You only get 7 days of backup data (assuming you’re on a personal plan) - so are you sure it’s not 7?

darren.james7518 · 2022-04-02T15:39:27.190Z

adamhholmes:

You need to set it in a workflow (either when you create the PDF, or make changes to it)

I have just found a post I created which had the answer (how to save PDF to invoice) and I’ve checked, all is exactly the same as before but now it’s not working today? This is how the PDF is saved:

saved pdf870×534 29.3 KB

mikeloc · 2022-04-02T15:40:46.128Z

Hi, @darren.james7518… while you are obviously in the best of hands with Adam, I was poking around in your app, and I think I may have spotted the cause of the “randomness” associated with your invoice statuses.

If I am seeing things correctly, it appears that you call the Save invoice custom event (which does not set an invoice’s status) from 4 workflows (although, one of those looks like it’s just a test, so let’s not count that one and say there are 3 workflows), but one of those workflows (the one called Text Preview invoice is clicked) does not have a step in it to set the invoice’s status. So, it appears that when you click the text element to save the invoice as a draft, it will set the status, but when you click the text to preview an invoice, it won’t.

Anyway, I could be way off, but it does look like an inconsistency that could be causing the issue, so I didn’t think it could hurt to throw it out there.

Best…
Mike

darren.james7518 · 2022-04-02T15:41:40.371Z

adamhholmes:

You only get 7 days of backup data (assuming you’re on a personal plan) - so are you sure it’s not 7?

Ok, hmmm, I usually have about 50 back up times but I suppose I typically save every 10 mins and maybe this week I haven’t been. If it is just 7 days then that is fine.

darren.james7518 · 2022-04-02T15:45:47.371Z

Thanks @mikeloc You are correct that some of the options to create a new invoice are not yet set up to set the Status, this is because I am testing on one button (see below). Only when that button works will I copy the workflow’s over to the others.

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darren.james7518 · 2022-04-02T16:00:35.940Z

adamhholmes:

That image (make changes to invoice) makes no sense… it’s a circular reference…

i.e. your setting a value to itself - which is illogical, makes no sense, and wont actually do anything (how could it?).

I’m not sure what you’re trying to do here, but that’s not doing anything at all.

I am trying to get the PDF to save to the Invoice’s data type. I made an error with my previous image, it is this field which needs to be populated in the Invoice datatype:

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I am saving the PDF to the Invoice’s data type like this:

saved pdf870×534 29.3 KB

Once again, it’s the create-invoice_saved-invoice which is tending to not work. As with the other issues today, they all refer to create-invoice.

adamhholmes · 2022-04-02T16:10:44.871Z

You’ve shown the wrong screenshot there (you’re talking about step 2 but have shown step 1), so I can’t see what you’re actually doing, but all you need to do is set the Invoice’s PDF field the the result of step 1.

I’m not sure what create-invoice’s saved-invoice is (maybe a custom state?)…

So I’m not sure why you’re using a custom state instead of the group’s data (invoice) - that’s probably where your confusion is coming from (I don’t understand it myself).

But again, if you use the debugger when you run the workflow, you’ll be able to see for yourself what’s wrong (run the workflow in step by step mode and check the data being set or referred to at each stage. Obviously at some point there will be no data, and that will tell you where the problem is).

But presumably, you’re not setting the custom state value correctly (create-invoice’s saved invoice) so fix that and you should be ok (although I still don’t see why you need that custom state when you can just use create-invoice’s invoice?).