I have one table, Preferences, with a number of portals where users can change their preferences. For some reason I can no longer create new records with these portals. When I try to enter text in a text field, I'm told that the "Action can not be performed since the field is not modifiable."

I'm using Developer 7. I could create new records in these portals up to a couple of weeks ago. And I can still create new records by going to the actual layout of these tables referenced by the Preference layout.

I made some portals to these Preference-referenced tables on other layouts belonging to other tables. Here too I cannot make new records.

However, I can still create new records on other layouts using portals to other tables not referenced by Preference.

I only have one Preference record. I can make changes to fields in the Preference record.

Any thoughts on this portal problem? Many thanks.

it sounds like you have unknowingly changed your field to a calculation field...as far as i know thats pretty much the only time you would get that message...

I checked to see if I'd changed the fields to calculation, but they are still text fields.

Also, what's strange is I can alter the fields of records in the portals where the records have been made before. But I can't create new records by writing in these same text fields.

If you're logged in in as Admin with full privileges then you can edit anything, except a calculation field.

Suspect user privileges allow edit but not create.

This may sound obvious, but is your portal relationship set to being able to create new records?

Thanks for your replies. I checked and I do have Full Access, so I can create new records, not just read.

I went into the relationship graph and deleted the relationship between Preferences and one of the tables showing up in a portal. I closed the Graph, then opened it again, created the relationship again, and checked the "Allow creation of records."

But back in Preferences, I still couldn't create new records in the Portal.

I tried Recovering a copy of the file, but the problem is still there. But it does seem like the file has been corrupted in some way. I may have to go back to my last copy, which unfortunately was two weeks ago. And I've done a huge amount of work since then . . .

Do you get a blank portal row after the last row with data?

Is the relationship based on some kind of non-equijoin operator? These are not compatible with "allow creation of related records"

Thank you all for your replies. Thinking about them made me realize that I myself was the source of the problem!

Originally I had set up relationships between the Preference Table (with its Preference ID of "Pref1") and the other tables by giving each record in the other tables a Preference ID text field with an auto entered data of "Pref1"

Then a couple of weeks ago, I had a problem updating and importing data for one of these other tables. So I decided to change the Preference ID text field in the other tables to an indexed calculation field of "Pref1"

Well, I can see now that doesn't work. I could see the current records in the portals on the Preference layout, but I couldn't make new records using the portals.

But if I want to create a relationship between these other tables and the Preference table, is using auto entered data of "Pref1" in the Preference ID field in the records of these other tables really the best way?