'field is repeated' error not appearing immediately in Collect

Support
1

1. What is the issue? Please be detailed.
Occurs in Collect 2025.4.0 Beta 0 & Collect 2025.3.2

While testing a form that was pulling from an entity list with a duplicate filter result (my error), the result of the failed calculation (and subsequent calculations that were not executed) was visible on screen by the lack of change, but the error message didn't appear.

When turning the device to change orientation, the error message then popped up. Dismissing the message and changing orientation again caused the error message to reappear, as does attempting to go forward or back. Locking screen and unlocking also causes it to reappear.

I would have expected to see the error message immediately upon selection of the item that triggered the calculation, for a selection that resulted in the duplicate result.

This was in a group in a repeat where the selection looked up an entity list for strings to display in question and hint text. Same behaviour occurred when the invalid selection is chosen first or chosen after choosing a different, valid one.

2. What steps can we take to reproduce this issue?
Create a selection that will trigger an instance lookup that will result in either a unique or a duplicate outcome and display the result in a question/hint field.
Select the item that will result in a duplicate and see if the error message appears, then either rotate/next/back/lock&unlock and see if the error message now appears.

3. What have you tried to fix the issue?
root cause remedied by removing duplicate but post is about when the error appears.

2

Hi @ahblake

Could you share your form so that we can reproduce it easily?

3

Here's a form that exhibits the error.

Field-repeated-error.xlsx (580.1 KB)

  • First group
    • Simple duplicate for name
    • Where there are choice duplicates (and allow choice duplicates = yes), webforms will select both on screen when either is selected. Likely not a true issue as there ought to be another choice filter when duplicates are allowed in a list like this.
    • Enketo & WF both return the first matching result, Collect returns nothing. But also no error.
  • Second group
    • combined selections used in a 2+ field lookup to return a label from another list, no name duplicate in any selection or lookup list. A duplicate combination in the two lookup fields (type & number) exists.
    • I didn't use a CSV or entity for ease of sharing, but it errors the same way.
    • Enketo & WF both return the first matching result, no error.
    • Collect doesn't evaluate when a duplicate lookup is selected, and will not show the error until back/next/rotate/lock-unlock/switch away & back.