Nonsensical error messages when creating new profile

Question

I have been trying to add a new profile (as a spouse for an existing profile), but I have been prevented from doing so by some error messages that do not make sense.

Here is what I see when I try to save the new profile.

Error: Invalid data. The following must be corrected:

1. A death date (19 Jun 1953) cannot be interpreted. Please use YYYY-MM-DD, DD Mon YYYY, or Month DD, YYYY.

Warning: Check the data.

1. A death date (19 Jun 1953) cannot be before a birth date (2 Aug 1893) .
2. A marriage date (29 Jan 1915) should not be after a spouse's death date ([Spouse] died 21 May 1945) .

I have seen others post similarly bizarre reports from time to time. There is a bug somewhere that ought to be fixed. The one thing I did in creating this profile that I think might have led to this error is that I accidentally typed something in the field for the email address. That prevented the profile from being created the first time I tried to save it, but now that I have deleted the content from that field, the system still will not let me create the profile. 

Comments

I do not need advice on how to create the profile. I have created it. The purpose of this post is to report the bug.

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So, is this difficulty due to an error in the software or is it due to the Operator Error syndrome?

Answer 1

Did you copy the date from somewhere? It's possible that there was some invisible character that the system couldn't interpret.

Comments

I did not copy any of the dates. I typed them in.

I do think the problem was related to the fact that I had initially put something in the email field, which caused the system to squawk because it thought I was trying to invite a dead person to become a member. The messages I posted here are the ones I got after I cleaned out the email field.

I finally overcame the error (and created the profile) by removing the death date.

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Did you enter the dates in the format "19 Jun 1953" or another way?

On the dev server at least, it's not just because of the email thing, but could be a combination of things.

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I have had a similar problem two or three times.  The first time it happened I deleted all the dates and entered  them again. I now, think it is caused if there is a space before one of the dates. Checking for spaces and removing them seemed to solve it last time it happened.

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I probably typed the date as 19 June 1953. I usually type the complete name of the month.

Although the alleged bad format for the death date was the only inescapable error, one of the two incorrect warnings that the system also was giving me was about two other dates (it warned me that 1915 is after 1945). When I removed the death date and saved the profile (without making any other changes), that warning did not reappear (there were no warnings).

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Joan, this could be correct. I rarely also get those types of error messages and usually there is a double blank somewhere or a typo when I type in the month abbreviation the German way (like Okt instead of Oct) or so.

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The other two warnings were because the thing that checks for errors couldn't recognize the death date. I'll have to try to figure out what combination of things breaks it.

Answer 2

For what it's worth, over the years I've had about a zillion of those formatting errors on just about every field possible. Some of them had me pulling my hair out in frustration. But in every single case, it wound up being operator error. My klutzy two-finger hunt-and-peck typing was the culprit.

Answer 3

This happens to me all too often! Every time it is because I put two spaces where there only needs to be one. Make sure there are no double spaces:

• 19 Jun  1953 <-will not work
• 19 Jun 1953 <-correct

Double spaces are hard to see.

I suppose there are other reasons this may happen, but this is the mistake I always make.