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Prefilled Form Opens Different on Different Chrome Profiles

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Kenneth_Raghuna
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

Hey everyone,

I have a 2 formula fields that generate prefilled form links. The forms are nearly identical and contain a number of linked record fields. I have noted that some of the prefilled linked record fields fail to prefill when opened with different Chrome profiles, or on Safari, on my own computer. Here is the spread of variation:

  • Chrome Profile 1: Everything works as expected across both forms
  • Chrome Profile 2: For given records, both form links failed to load (Chrome says the page is unresponsive). I have not determined a common cause across records who's links fail yet. When the form links do load, there are (2) linked record fields that do not prefill.
  • Incognito: All form links load (including those that do not load in Profile 2). 1 form works fully as expected, the other has (1) linked record field that does not prefill.
  • Safari:  An inconsistent mixture of all anomalous behavior referenced above.

I understand that this issue is not necessarily to do with Airtable itself, but I am hoping that someone can point me in the right direction to learn more about how different different Chrome profiles or browsers treat these prefill links. Are there places I can go within Chrome profiles to see if there are differences in how they parse links? Is the issue outside of basic configuration?

*Note: All prefilled links were generated with kuovonne's prefilled form extension. All components are properly URL encoded as far as I can tell (I did a painstaking audit of the prefill links).

5 Replies 5

That's super interesting!  Any chance you could provide some examples of links via a duplicated base or something?  Would love to experiment a bit!  Have you opened a support ticket with Airtable about it?

Kenneth_Raghuna
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

The plot thickens!

I duplicated both forms (not manually, I used the Duplicate button), *made no changes*, and tried substituting the new base form links for the previous ones in the prefilled URLs. Everything works across all browsers/profiles with the new form links.

This now seems like an Airtable issue that's out user hands. I'll be filing a support ticket to let them know to look into it, but as far as I'm involved, I'll just be switching to the new base form links and hope that it doesn't break anytime soon again.

@TheTimeSavingCo I unfortunately cannot duplicate the base because the info is confidential. If I were to dupe the base and erase all the records, creating new records with enough dummy data to suffice for experimentation would take too long.

 

Anyone else have experience with forms/form links breaking for no apparent reason?

 

Kenneth_Raghuna
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

The plot unthickens!

After a few minutes of existence, the new form links do not operate consistently across browsers and profiles anymore.

Everything works fine in Safari and Incognito mode. One linked field is missing on Chrome Profile 1, and two linked fields are missing on Chrome Profile 2.

ScottWorld
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

Not sure why it’s not working for you, but there is a much easier way of doing this.

You can use Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable, which is 100% free and allows you to update Airtable records directly from a form… and you don’t need to create any lengthy prefill form links to update Airtable records directly from a form… just one short link per record.

— ScottWorld, Expert Airtable Consultant

Kenneth_Raghuna
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

Hey @ScottWorld ! Thanks for reminding me about Fillout. I've been aware of it for some time, but always assumed that most of my needed features would be beyond the Free plan. I will make sure to give it a look today and re-evaluate!