The following problem is actually quite old, though I’ve only just noticed it. I’ve tested and confirmed its existence in Notes client versions 7.0.3, 8.0.2 and 8.5 beta 2. I’ve also only tested in Windows Vista, so don’t know about other OSes.
The problem is that, in a document open for editing, refreshing the document shortly after opening it may cause a dialog-list field to lose its choices.
To reproduce consistently, the following must be true:
The document’s form must have a dialog-list field set to “Use formula for choices”, and the formula must reference a computed-for-display field on the form.
Upon opening the document in edit mode, put focus on the dialog-list field then, before displaying the choices, refresh the document (i.e. press F9).
Display the choice list after refreshing, and the list will be empty.
The problem does not occur if you display the choice list before refreshing, or if the focus is on a different field at the time of refreshing.
I’ve found two workarounds:
If the dialog-list field has “Refresh choices on document refresh” enabled, then refreshing again will restore the choice list; otherwise…
If that option is not enabled, it is necessary to close and reopen the document.