Serious bug with Combo Box or the function Concat

[Anonymous]

I have a working app that has gone through multiple rounds of functional and UAT testing. I have utilised the Combo Box control where it allows users to select multiple items. I will then use Concat to concatenate the data into a single line and patch to SQL database. 

This problem has started occurring around 26/08/2020. I have also pin pointed that the problem is apparent from Power Apps release 3.20081.23. This is because I was able to restore my app back to an earlier version, where there was no change at that area. The earlier version of my app had Power Apps release 3.20072.19 - the restored app worked as expected. 

In summary:

Power Apps release version	Working / Not working
3.20072.19 and before	Working
3.20081.23 and after	Not-working

What is also frustrating is that it works while building and preview, once the app is published, it gives a different behaviour which is very hard to debug. 

Here are the steps to reproduce:

Setup sample collection 

ClearCollect(People,Table({Name:"John Smith",Email:"jsmith@xyz.com"},{Name:"Amanada Rogers",Email:"arogers@xyz.com"},{Name:"Claire Hudson",Email:"chudson@xyz.com"}))

Insert Combo Box and use the People collection as Data source

Insert a label setting the text attribute

Concat(ComboBox1.SelectedItems,Email,";")

Insert another label attribute

Concat(ComboBox1.SelectedItems,Name,", ")

While in preview, test select a few items

Publish the app and Play - you can see that the email is not coming through as expected

Can someone please let me know if they are seeing the same behaviour I am with their Combo Box control?

I am also contacting support to have this fixed as soon as possible, this is causing major down stream impact as our Flows require the correct email addresses... and NOT.+@.+\.[^\.]{2,}; 

Hi @v-yutliu-msft  - can you please take a look? 

[KranthiTupakula]

@Anonymous  I see the same behavior. I tried all of your steps. This is so annoying.

[Anonymous]

Thanks @KranthiTupakula for confirming.

Am not sure why this thread has disappeared from the forum as well! 😞 

[v-yutliu-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ,

Thanks for your feedback about this problem!

I've made a similar test and met the same problem.

I have reported this to our product team.

If there's any reply about this, I will leave a message here.

Best regards,

Phoebe

[Anonymous]

Hi @v-yutliu-msft 

Thank you for your response. 

This problem is causing a stand still for us. We cannot further publish our app because it will break it. 

Kind Regards

[v-yutliu-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ,

Our product team is focus on fixing this bug now. This need some time.

As an alternative solution, you could change Label1.Text to Concat(People, ThisRecord.Email, ";").

If I receive any reply about fixing this bug, I will leave my message here.

Best regards,

[Anonymous]

Hi @v-yutliu-msft ,

After working with support, they were able to give me the following code:

Label1.Text to Concat(Combox1.SelectedItems, ThisRecord.Email, ";"). This code works.

The product team recognised it is a bug and will be fixing it and keeping me in the loop. 

Thanks for your attention in this. 

[PaulD1]

This may be a work-around for when a new version of Power Apps breaks existing functionality and you need to publish an update, but publishing to the current version will break your App - a circumstance that arises all too often unfortunately ☹️ 

Use a link like this: 

https://au.create.powerapps.com/v3.20064.23.155867258/studio/?source=portal&environment-name=Default... 

To open a specific version of Power Apps (where v3.2xxxx is the version number).

Use the following link to get a list of version numbers - at the moment (Sep 2020) it appears to let you go as far back as Jan 2020.

https://create.powerapps.com/debug.html

Having opened the old version of the maker portal, you can go to Apps and open an App in the older version of the editor, make you amendments and then save/publish using that version.

Use at your own peril! I cannot comment on how stable/reliable this is! At worst, you could use this to confirm a suspicion that an error in your apps is a result of a bug introduced into the platform since you last published your App.

[PaulD1]

Email is a parameter for the IsMatch function (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/functions/function-ismatch ) - looks like the latest version of PowerApps assumes you are reference the parameter for the IsMatch function instead of the field in the SelectedItems of your combo box.

I imagine this may affect anyone who has used the term 'Email' but not fully resolved it (e.g. specifying ThisRecord first). 

We really need a bit more quality control from the Product Team.

[KurtSchron]

Has there been any other updates to this bug? 

I'm experiencing it now even using the code included below but only if using the Mobile App on iOS. If I use a Chrome desktop browser it works fine.