I started having a situation today where field content in two of my fields would only show up if i clicked in the field. sometimes i can get the second field (which is based off of the first field) to show itself like normal, which demonstrates that the first field has the values there but simply are not visible, until clicked on.

I've never seen this before. Is this a bug? Or from something else?

It could be file corruption: save a compacted copy of the file and see if that fixes it.

The only time I've seen something like this has been with related fields, when the relationship was defined to sort but the field had been deleted.

I haven't tried the compacted version (do I lose anything by doing that?) but I just changed the calculation (which results in Text) to be Text rather than Number, and that seemed to fix it. Does that make sense? It makes sense to set that correctly but I don't see why that would result in that kind of behavior.

...and the fields are not related genuine summary fields - refreshing issues can occure in numerous situations where reliance on unstored fields a relation away ... are supposed to have a life outside layout renderings, which they don't.

Do not post questions, without mentioning context and purpose, such as what does the relational ties look like, here is platform completely irrelevant, but version could make a difference. What does the intermediate in you profile mean. Does it mean that you are a spreadsheet jockey and presume the logic rubs off.

--sd

They aren't summary fields, and the problem hasn't recurred since I changed it to 'text', but would you say its a good practice to not have unstored calculations that are a few relations away?

I am not a spreadsheet guy. I'm used to working with lasso, where I can specify the relationships on the fly and not fix them into stone. Its just a different set of rules even if the logic is the same.