Known issues

Features of survey creation that don't behave as expected or intended are described below, as well as any potential solutions or workarounds.

For a list of known error messages that you may receive when saving or publishing a survey, see Troubleshoot.

To report or learn more about bugs in Survey123, visit Support.

Startup and sign in

• ArcGIS Survey123 Connect fails to start, and an error message appears stating that the api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll file is missing.
• My link to open a Survey123 survey and populate the contents of a numerical question is not working when opened from ArcGIS Field Maps on Android using some non-English European locales.
• Browser-based sign in doesn't automatically browse back to the app on Windows.
• Incorrect icons are displayed in Survey123 Connect on Windows.

Form creation and publishing

• The Other and Select other labels for select_one and select_multiple questions do not appear in languages other than English.
• I can't save changes to the .xlsx form when creating a new survey on a machine using OpenOffice.
• Survey123 Connect fails to publish, and a message appears stating that there was an error converting an XLSForm when I try to publish a survey with a bind::type applied to a select_one question.
• I cannot generate a survey from a layer that is not the first layer in my feature service.
• HTML formatting in my survey that worked in a previous release of Survey123 is no longer functioning.
• The text in the label or hint of my question is cut off after using a less than (<) symbol.
• The Survey123 XLSForm template refuses all name values when using OpenOffice and LibreOffice.
• The first letter of a sentence doesn't automatically capitalize on some Android devices.
• My keyboard doesn't display correctly for text questions when using a character-based language on Android.
• I'm unable to answer text questions using the speech to text function on my Android device.

Form behavior

• My survey doesn't validate when being created from a feature layer with a related table.
• My repeat with metadata questions is submitting information, even if the repeat is not relevant.
• Questions that reference external files do not work on iOS but do on all other platforms.
• My cascading or external select displays no choices.

Startup and sign in

ArcGIS Survey123 Connect fails to start, and an error message appears stating that the api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll file is missing.

This message indicates that the Universal C Runtime in Windows components, which are required for running Survey123 Connect, are missing. These components were distributed in a Windows update that you can download from Windows support.

My link to open a Survey123 survey and populate the contents of a numerical question is not working when opened from ArcGIS Field Maps on Android using some non-English European locales.

On Android, a space within a URL will cause the URL to become truncated at that point. In locales that use a space as a thousands separator for large numbers, such as French, Swedish, German, and Danish, this can cause a failure to launch Survey123 when a large number is included in the launch URL.

Avoid this issue by disabling the thousands separator for that web map. Open the web map in ArcGIS Online, open Configure Attributes in the Configure Pop-up pane, and disable the Use 1000 Separator format option.

Browser-based sign in doesn't automatically browse back to the app on Windows.

This is a known limitation of browser-based sign in with Windows operating systems. This platform instead provides a string of text to paste into the app that completes the sign in process. This workaround is intended to be replaced by the functionality seen in other platforms in the future.

Incorrect icons are displayed in Survey123 Connect on Windows.

Icons in Survey123 Connect are packaged as custom fonts that load when the app runs. If your Windows policy prevents untrusted custom fonts from loading, the icons in Survey123 are substituted with a system font.

Form creation and publishing

The Other and Select other labels for select_one and select_multiple questions do not appear in languages other than English.

These labels are generated automatically when a select_one or select_multiple question includes the XLSForm option of or_other and cannot be translated. It is recommended to add a separate text question to collect the other response. For more information, see Multiple choice questions.

I can't save changes to the .xlsx form when creating a new survey on a machine using OpenOffice.

This is because OpenOffice cannot save documents as the .xlsx file type.

Workaround:

Close Survey123 Connect. Click Save As to save a copy of your spreadsheet in your project folder with the same file name, but use the .xls file extension. Delete the original spreadsheet with the .xlsx file extension. Open Survey123 Connect and open your project. Your survey is now connected to the new .xls file, and you can successfully save any changes in OpenOffice.

Survey123 Connect fails to publish, and a message appears stating that there was an error converting an XLSForm when I try to publish a survey with a bind::type applied to a select_one question.

A select_one question can only return a string. If you require the value from a select_one to be any other field type, add a calculate question with the desired bind::type, and populate this question with the answer from the select_one question.

I cannot generate a survey from a layer that is not the first layer in my feature service.

In Survey123 Connect, you can choose to create a new survey from an existing feature layer. A new XLSForm is generated containing questions for each of the fields in the first feature layer of the service and any tables that are related to that first layer. If you need to create a survey from a feature layer that is not the first layer in the service, you must author a new form and specify which layer in the feature layer it should connect to using the form ID and submission URL.

HTML formatting in my survey that worked in a previous release of Survey123 is no longer functioning.

Starting from Survey123 version 3.13, Survey123 matches the same HTML standard as ArcGIS Online. This standard is based on HTML5, meaning that tags such as center are no longer supported and will not function. For a list of supported HTML tags, see Style a survey.

The text in the label or hint of my question is cut off after using a less than (<) symbol.

This issue occurs if you enter text after the less than symbol without separating them with a space. You can use the coded value (&lt;) to display a less than symbol in labels and hints and when there is no space between the symbol and text.

The Survey123 XLSForm template refuses all name values when using OpenOffice and LibreOffice.

This is an issue with the XLSForm template when using OpenOffice or older versions of LibreOffice, where all attempts to enter something into the name column return an error message indicating that the value must be less than 32 characters with no spaces or ASCII characters (even if the value already follows these requirements). This is because OpenOffice and older versions of LibreOffice use semicolons to separate arguments in formulas, while Excel uses commas. Because the template is designed with Excel in mind, these other applications can't properly read the formula used to restrict invalid characters. You can solve this by replacing the commas with semicolons. In both applications, you can do this by opening the Data menu and selecting Validation.

The first letter of a sentence doesn't automatically capitalize on some Android devices.

When using Gboard or ZenUI keyboards, automatic capitalization does not work by default, as these keyboards turn off automatic capitalization when predictive text is disabled. Apply the predictivetext appearance to text questions to enable the predictive text keyboard for that question and enable automatic capitalization.

My keyboard doesn't display correctly for text questions when using a character-based language on Android.

Predictive text is disabled for text questions by default on Android, which causes issues with character-based keyboards that use predictive text to operate. Apply the predictivetext appearance to a text question to enable the predictive text keyboard for that question.

I'm unable to answer text questions using the speech to text function on my Android device.

Predictive text is disabled for text questions by default on Android, which can deactivate the speech to text function on some keyboards. Apply the predictivetext appearance to a text question to enable speech to text for that question.

Form behavior

My survey doesn't validate when being created from a feature layer with a related table.

If the feature layer you're creating your survey from has a related table, and this table has field names with the same names as the feature layer, the XLSForm does not validate. This needs to be changed in the feature layer, as XLSForms do not support two questions with the same name.

My repeat with metadata questions is submitting information, even if the repeat is not relevant.

When present in a repeat, metadata question types (username, email, start, and end) cause a record in the repeat to be created, even when the repeat is hidden through a relevant expression. You can avoid this using the minimal appearance for the repeat, which only creates a record when the add button is selected after the repeat becomes relevant.

Questions that reference external files do not work on iOS but do on all other platforms.

iOS has stricter case sensitivity than other platforms. If you refer to external files in your XLSForm, use the correct capitalization for the file name and contents within the file.

External files to consider include .csv files used with the pulldata() function, images or audio that are shown on your form, or tile packages that are used in geopoint, geotrace, and geoshape questions to display an offline basemap.

My cascading or external select displays no choices.

Starting with Survey123 version 3.12, choice lists are managed through an internal database. This means that you cannot use SQLite reserved keywords for column names in cascading and external selects.