Strange Behavior in a Combo Box (1 Viewer)

KACJR

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Greetings to the well of knowledge...

This is a strange one.

I have a user of one of our Access front-end apps that often has need to move from an app that requires data entered as all caps (primitive, I know) to the Access front end. There is a drop-down search field that users can employ to select an individual. I cannot describe what's going on but I can show you video.

Here are links to two videos in my Google Drive:
This one shows the correct behavior for this drop-down object: Correct behavior
This one shows the bad behavior that this user is seeing: Bad behavior

Note that Caps Lock is on for both scenarios.

I have looked at the properties of the field and see nothing amiss. And here's the other thing: I use this same logic in other drop-down fields, and it works as expected for everyone, including my problem user.

I've recompiled the front end, thinking it might have become corrupted.
I've replaced the keyboard.
I've moved the keyboard to a different USB port.
No love.

Frankly, I'm thinking there some kind of flaw in either Windows, this person's copy of Access, or the hardware.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Ken
 

KACJR

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Additional info:
Windows 10 20H2
Access 2016, fully patched.
 

Gasman

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That appears to be like the Insert key is on?
 

The_Doc_Man

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Rule out hardware in the sense of "malfunction" because you say it works correctly for other fields. Rule out Windows issues for the same reason. Neither of those reasons would cause the selective behavior you report (one works, other doesn't). In trouble-shooting, that kind of behavior screams "look for individual differences."

My best advice is to look at this control vs. another one with similar setup but that works correctly. (You said you had some like that.) Open up the property sheets for each control and do a one-by-one property compare. Also look at EVERY event's code to verify that they are identical. If these are bound controls, ALSO look at the underlying properties of the field in its table and of any query that intervenes between the table and the form.

If that goes nowhere, consider that you might have a subtle form of corruption. Create the form in question from scratch. You can copy/paste any code, but DON'T copy the form and just rename the copy. See if that helps.

As a last gasp, try to make a new copy of the file in question by creating a blank DB and then importing everything into it from the old DB. (Yes, the WHOLE FILE.)
 

Mike Krailo

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To re-iterate, you are saying that this behavior only occurs for one user and it works just fine for other users on different computer systems? I would create a new user account on that users machine and test in the new account to rule out any possible user profile weirdness. If the form is working for other users and not this one user, then there has to be some other outside influence in that users account or on their system. If that user is running any kind of scripts like Auto Hot Key or similar, that can take over the app. So check all the processes that are running on that system and see what is different. Why it is only targeting the one control on one users system doesn't make sense unless it is a user account profile issue or conflicting app problem.
 

KACJR

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To re-iterate, you are saying that this behavior only occurs for one user and it works just fine for other users on different computer systems? I would create a new user account on that users machine and test in the new account to rule out any possible user profile weirdness. If the form is working for other users and not this one user, then there has to be some other outside influence in that users account or on their system. If that user is running any kind of scripts like Auto Hot Key or similar, that can take over the app. So check all the processes that are running on that system and see what is different. Why it is only targeting the one control on one users system doesn't make sense unless it is a user account profile issue or conflicting app problem.
Nothing about this adds up. I'm thinking, as a low hanging fruit possible fix, uninstalling Access from her machine, running CCleaner to remove all remnants, then reinstalling it and see what happens.
 

vicstick

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Hi KACJR, could you let us know if you were able to resolve this in the end? I am having the exact same issue with one of my users. Much appreciated.
 

KACJR

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So, for some Gawd awful reason, reinstalling Access fixed the problem. I have no idea why.
 

Isaac

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I hate to be negative nancy, (and am not trying to), but being able to describe problems with written words is nearly the currency of tech development community engagement. MANY people (me included) would never click a link to a video (or unknown file) away from AWF, and especially pointing to a personal Google account, from our work computers (which many are on when reading AWF), or for that matter, any computer.

Just food for thought. Whatever it is that couldn't be described, I'm glad you got it fixed!
 

vicstick

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Thanks so much, KACJR. It's very odd indeed! Isaac has a point, but I also don't know quite how I would describe it, and your videos did helpfully confirm to me that I had exactly the same problem. I had tried googling for the problem with several different descriptions, such as "typing in combobox inserts characters instead of overwriting", "combobox fails to populate correctly after typing third character", no luck, and finally found your post by simply googling "strange behaviour in ms access combobox"!
 

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