Update on this problem: I found a workaround, but it ended up in the category of _really_ weird bugs, that I refer to privately as "magic perl moments". What happened was at the very end of order_details, all my variables including orderitem description are fine, the $form->{description}[..] array is loaded... but back in io.pl print_form, _immediately_ after returning from order_details, the {description} array has been trashed. To get around it I just made another array called tempdescription, which doesn't get trashed, and used that in all the templates.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Chris Calef <..hidden..>
Date: Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:49 AM
Subject: intermittent problem with orderitem descriptions when printing
To:
..hidden..
Hi,
I'm sure this is a bug I introduced somehow, but it's really driving me crazy and is presenting a serious problem for my client. When I'm on a sales order or sometimes an invoice edit page, and try to print, either to html or to postscript, I find that on some orders the orderitem descriptions just don't print. The quantity, price, etc. is all there, only the description goes blank, but if it happens for one item it will happen for all items, and it's consistent every time I come back to that order. Other orders that look _exactly_ the same print just fine. I've done a kompare on the html of the edit screen for functional and nonfunctional orders, prior to printing, and all relevant fields appear identical. In the order_details function in OE.pm the descriptions exist, everything looks fine, but when it gets to parse_template, boom, no descriptions. I know this isn't enough data for anyone to seriously debug the problem, but I'm just wondering if anyone has ever seen any similar behavior or can point me in any directions that I might not have checked yet.
Thanks,
Chris Calef