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In the past couple of days I've noticed that a number of Smart Container powered timelines are no longer working as expected. My timeline is fed from a CSV and the containers are labeled "Week 1" "Week 2" and so on.

Previously these container columns would appear in the expected order (1 2 3 4...) starting from the left of the Smart Container. But as of the last couple of days the containers are re-sorting seemingly randomly and are out of sequence. It is impossible to drag the containers or to use the "Manage Containers" menu to reorder the containers. If I drag a container in the Mange Containers list to a new position it will move in the list but the actual container remains unchanged. Refreshing the page or moving to a new menu and then back again simply moves the item in the Manage Containers menu to the original (incorrect) location. 

Furthermore if I duplicate the tab the Smart Container will render with the containers in the proper order but only until the page is released or refreshed and then it will re-sort into the incorrect order and cannot be updated via dragging or the Manage Containers menu. 


This is new behavior as I have been using this method for some time and only saw the error over the last couple of days. Has there been an update that might have introduced this behavior? Are there any known work arounds? 


Thanks for your help

Hey Scott


Thank you for posting in the Lucid Community and sorry to hear about the trouble you're having with our Smart Containers. Taking a look on my end--I'm unable to recreate what you are seeing however I do have some thoughts on what may help out. 


Have you tried to re-import the dataset into a new page? This would allow you to keep any rules or formatting that you have intact and apply them to the new shapes in the Smart Container. From there you should be able to copy anything other than the Smart Container over from your previous page. 


I don't believe there have been any new iterations that should have caused this error. If this workaround doesn't work for you or you would like for us to take a look at your specific document please reach out to our Support Team directly at support@lucidchart.com


Hope this helps--feel free to reach back out here or at the email above with more questions! Cheers!


I too am having this same issue and I'm using a google sheet as a datasource.  I have repeatedly used your proposed workaround which sometimes works initially only to revisit the document a week later and same issue occurs - which is frustrating because the product should not only know how to auto sort years and quarters but won't even let me manually override. 


This appears to be a critical product bug to the most basic smart container functionality and has been consistently reproducible for me (I wish it wasn't).  In its current state it's entirely un-usable since I can't present a roadmap with a random quarterly / yearly order.


Hi Matt thank you for contributing to the Lucid Community. I've created a ticket so that we can take a closer look at your case and directly assist you! For anyone else who may be experiencing this issue please reach out to our support team using this form.


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