Has anyone else had an issue with the life stage field when entering records? On numerous occasions I have entered the data for a record and then when attempting to save the record got a message that some required fields have not been filled in and, invariably, it is the life stage field. At first I assumed I had overlooked filling in this field but as time has gone on I have made a conscious point of setting the life stage field and still ended up with having to go back and re-enter it as it has somehow reverted to blank. It's only a minor irritation but what's going on?
Comments
Wise words from James
I have to agree with James. It shouldn't really make any difference but it's probably safest to fill in the fields in page order.
The issue may stem from the fact that unlike other drop-down form fields on the page, that have a fixed list of options, the list for the life stage input is dynamically generated depending on what you enter in the species input. The stage input has a default list of generic life stages (adult, pre-adult, other) but if you open developer tools you can see the page overwriting this with a more specific list of options as you enter a species in the species field.
I've just done some quick testing on the "enter a casual record" page entering Vanessa atalanta in the species field and the stage field updated to show the life stages relating to butterflies. I then went back and changed the species to Rana temporaria and the stage field updated to the life stages relating to frogs. So the page is currently working as it should but I've experienced a similar issue to you in the past where the stage field did not update.
Mesh
Are you filling in the fields top to bottom? This has happened with me in the past and what was happening was if I selected the life cycle field first, but then changed a field above it, e.g. once I'd added the photo I went back and selected male or female, then that would blank out the life stage field. This hasn't happened to me when filling the fields out strictly one after the other down the page.