A view named "Settings" disappears silently, reserved name is not indicated

AppSheet AppSheet Q&A
1

Creating a view named “Settings” and placing it in menu navigation results in
the view disappearing after save. No error, no warning, no message.

The name apparently collides with AppSheet’s own User Settings view. That is
reasonable, but there is no indication of it in the editor.

Expected: a warning that the name is reserved, or an automatic rename.

Actual: the view is silently removed.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Create a new view named “Settings”.
  2. Set Position to menu.
  3. Save the app and open the menu.

Result: the view is not there. Renaming it to anything else, for example
“Config”, makes it appear immediately.

We lost a fair amount of time assuming the problem was in our data source or
in the Position setting.

2

This is a legit bug (attn @Jose_Arteaga).

A workaround is to call the view something else (e.g., My Settings) and use Display Name to present it to the user as Settings.

3

I know. but this is a system bug. No warning, just erasing

4

Thanks @Steve!

Hello @Rausa,

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! I am reporting this bug to the support team.

I’ll keep you posted of any updates.

5

Hello @Rausa,

I got a notification today that the issue has been resolved. According to the update provided, the system now allows the use of “Settings” as a view name without dropping the configuration.

Could you help me validate on your end?

6

Hi Jose,

Thanks for the update, but I can confirm the bug still reproduces on my end, both for renaming an existing view and for creating a brand new one.

First I renamed my existing view (previously using the My Settings workaround) to Settings, kept Position as menu, and saved. The view disappeared from the menu again, same as before.

I then also tested creating a brand new view named Settings from scratch, same table, Position set to menu. Same result, it disappeared after save.

So whatever fix was deployed does not seem to be live yet, or it is not actually addressing the issue at all. Could you check with the team whether the fix actually shipped and get another look at it?

Also, as general feedback: it would help a lot if updates like this were verified internally against a blank test app before asking affected users to validate. That way we are not the ones re-discovering that the fix is not actually working.

7

AppSheet has never had a formal QA process, to my knowledge. Unit tests and developer diligence only. That said, it’s entirely possible they were able to fix a problem but not your specific problem. This is what user acceptance testing (“please confirm it works now”) is meant to catch.

8

Thanks for checking, I’m reaching out to the engineering team and I’ll get back to you as soon as I hear back from them

9

Hello,

I got a notice today that a fix, which prevents the view from dropping upon save, has been deployed to production. I have tested it and it is working as expected to me.

10

Thanks for the attention on this one. Steve’s workaround already confirmed it is a real bug. While testing this myself my own app broke, so I do not want to go through that stress again right now. I have renamed the view to AppSettings and I am happy with that as a permanent solution, so I will not be pursuing this further for now. If I get the chance to set up a new app in the future I will test it again and post the results back in this thread.

Thanks again for looking into it.