Combo Box Errors with SearchItems property

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Posted on by _sigmaNot_

Hi everyone,

I've spent the majority of the day trying to figure this one out, unfortunately haven't found a solution...

I have a combo box (Students) with a Collection as data source.

The collection is dependent on the selection from another combo box (Sites) and I rebuild the collection in the OnChange property of the Sites combo box.

The collection works fine but the Students combo box doesn't show any entries when I click on it, and it is showing 2 errors with the SearchItems property, but when I click on the error it takes me to the DisplayFields property and I see nothing wrong...

If I change the IsSearchable property of the Students combo box to false the errors go away and the collection populates as expected, but the list can go up to almost ~1,700 entries for some sites and the search feature is an absolute necessity in this case.

Here are some screenshots:

formula to build collection on Sites combo box OnChange property

2 Formula Errors in the Sites combo box

Unexpected characters error detail

invalid number of arguments error details

Display Fields and Search Fields on Students combo box. All are text fields

Any help is appreciated 🙂

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Building Power Apps

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_sigmaNot_ 49 on at

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Correction:
The caption on the 2nd screenshot should read...
2 Formula Errors in the Students combo box

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WarrenBelz 154,540 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hi @_sigmaNot_ ,

I may be guessing here, but one issue I can see is that the two possible collections are not the same - one contains a

ClearCollect( colStudents, If( IsBlank(cbox_School.Selected), AddColumns( Filter( 'cmu.vw_ActiveStudents’, Title = Blank() ), "Displaylnfo", "" ), AddColumns( Filter( 'cmu.vwActiveStudents', SchoolID = cbox_School.Selected.SchoolID ), "Displaylnfo", LastName & ”, " & FirstName & " " & Proper(MiddleName) & " | " & Grade ) ) )

DisplayInfo field and the other one does not. You cannot add the column to "Defaults" as this is a single record, but if you had one blank record in the Table, (I have used the Title field as an example), you could try this and see if that helps all the errors.

Please click Accept as solution if my post helped you solve your issue. This will help others find it more readily. It also closes the item. If the content was useful in other ways, please consider giving it Thumbs Up.

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_sigmaNot_ 49 on at

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@WarrenBelz
I ended up setting the Student combo box to disable when no school is selected and then add the DisplayInfo column within the Items property of the combo box. I opted for this approach as the user shouldn't be able to interact with the Student combo box until after a school is selected. This worked for me!

Was curious about your solution so I tried it and can confirm it works as well!

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kat_rock 114 on at

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Update 30-Oct-2023: The below 'fix' stopped working. I re-added the combo box and it is working perfectly now, even though there are no differences between the formulas of the original version that had the bug and the new version that works perfectly.

The short version: I had the same issue and fixed it by setting the value of 'SearchFields' from the top left menu to the same SharePoint list that is the basis for the collection used for the 'Items' property.

The long version:
I had the exact same issue _sigmaNot_ reported. My combo box worked perfectly until I set 'isSearchable' to true and then nothing would appear in the dropdown.

When I had 'Items' set to Sort(ManagingDirectorCollection, displayName)

If I chose 'Edit fields' from the right menu and selected an option for SearchField

The whole thing would break and start showing options from another data source:

I fixed mine by changing the value of the 'SearchFields' property from the left dropdown menu to the SharePoint list that is the source for the collection that populates the Items prop. That fixed it.

Interestingly, while taking the screen shots for this post, I have been able to select the search field from the 'Edit fields' menu and it has not broken again. Perhaps choosing a value for the 'SearchFields' property reset something elsewhere that solved the issue.
If anyone has an explanation I'm curious to hear it.

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Rekokoko 51 on at

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Sorry to say that but combo box, like many things in Power Apps, are half-baked. It acts completely randomly... I had working combo box with multi field selection and searching - I did change NOTHING and now I have the same error.

Microsoft support is clueless - they just waste your time on multiple calls to "soft close" it after weeks.

I wish I never picked Power Apps for in-house apps development - it's mess I can't get out of right now, because of already made investment.

State of the "low code" a.d. 2024.

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WarrenBelz 154,540 Most Valuable Professional on at

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@Rekokoko ,

Is this a Modern or Classic control ? If Modern, yes they are currently lacking some facility that I am sure will come in the future and (like myself) you might consider staying with Classic for the moment.

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Rekokoko 51 on at

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No, it's classic control - it just stopped working and here you go: bang your head against the wall. Did I mention that app is on production and dozens of users working with it?...
I've been using Microsoft products for over two decades and I'm shocked with the state of Power Apps.

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WarrenBelz 154,540 Most Valuable Professional on at

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@Rekokoko ,

Maybe silly question, but did you try deleting and re-adding it ? If in a Form, also do the Data Card.

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Rekokoko 51 on at

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It's not silly - it's the way how you work with Power Apps - create, test, release, it stops working, start randomly deleting and adding back controls.
Oh, you have a complex logic to get and transform data and dependent formulas? Too bad!
Man, thanks for trying, but just let it go - I tried everything.
I have literally items set to a Dataverse table and gazillion times checked search and display fields names, but it still complains about that they're wrong and refuse to work.
Yes, I refreshed editor and yes I restarted computer and YES, I'm going to rewrite whole thing to the **bleep** .net app and close this whimsical chapter of "low code" in my life.

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WarrenBelz 154,540 Most Valuable Professional on at

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@Rekokoko ,

Sorry to see you are experiencing this - maybe I have been lucky over the last 6 -7 years, but apart from replacing a few corrupt controls, it has been fairly smooth sailing.

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