Question

I need expert advice here…

I have run into the strangest problem in my career…

I have a form with alot of “SELECT” tags. Each tag contains a large amount of “OPTION” tags.

The form wont submit at all, but when I remove parts of the form content (for example, some SELECT tags), then the form will submit properly.

However, there is NO consistency whatsoever, I mean, the removal of the tags can be random.
I have tried looking at what part exactly of the “removed” part of my form could be causing the form not to submit, but I can’t figure it out.

It is easier explained by showing you an example…
I will skip the form tag, and js functions because I am positive they are not the problem now after hours of headache…

Here is one SELECT tag:

<div class="nav_sub_juveler" id="nav_sub_juveler">

  <select name="smycken_type" id="smycken_type" style="width: 130px; margin-bottom: 5px;">
                 <option value="Alla Typer" class="nav_option_main" selected>-- Alla Typer --</option>
                 <option value="Klockor & Ur" title="Klockor, Ur">Klockor & Ur</option>
                 <option value="Juveler" title="Smycken, Pärlor, Guld, Silver, Diamanter mm">Juveler</option>
                 <option value="Övrigt" title="Övrigt">Övrigt</option>
  </select>

<br />

      <input type="radio" name="smycken_action" id="smycken_säljes" value="Säljes" checked onClick="disable_actions('nav_sub_juveler', false);">
      <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size:14px; font-weight:bold;">Säljes</font>
      <input type="radio" name="smycken_action" id="smycken_köpes" value="Köpes" onClick="disable_actions('nav_sub_juveler', true);">
      <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size:14px; font-weight:bold;">Köpes</font>

</div>

Now, in this part of the form, I have a division container which contains some options (just like the rest of my form).
If I chose to remove the radio buttons here, the form will submit.
So right away, you think “ok, there must be something about the radio buttons causing the form not to submit!”.
But NO!
If I instead remove the “Options” in the select tag (or the select tag alltogether), but leave the radios, the form will submit again.
But leaving both will not submit the form.

And the strange about this is that the rest of the form is made exactly the same way as this, and it WILL submit with both radios and selects…

I can’t figure it out…

Is there anything you can see here that could cause the problem?

PS: The css has no problem either, the prob is elsewhere…
PS2: I have tried rewriting and rearranging the text, but no luck

Answer 1

If the <form> is using GET, try changing it to POST and see if that makes a difference.

As @spbfox was saying, there’s a limit on how long a URL can be.

Edit

It’s not just IE6, URLs longer than ~2k cause all kinds of breakage.

I had a legacy app which used GET on a huge page (100+ fields), and it worked okay for years…then last winter the user installed a common toolbar (Google, Yahoo or Bing, don’t remember which), and it would silently truncate the data. Changing the page to POST fixed it.

Of course, if your action page uses Request.QueryString() you’ll have to change those to Request.Form().