# Erroneous "Observer does not allow additional observation fields"

**URL:** <https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/erroneous-observer-does-not-allow-additional-observation-fields/51336>\
**Category:** Bug Reports\
**Created:** [May 11, 2024, 12:47am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/erroneous-observer-does-not-allow-additional-observation-fields/51336 "2024-05-11T00:47:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dan\_johnson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/dan_johnson/32/1449_2.png) [@dan\_johnson](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/dan_johnson)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 12:47am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/erroneous-observer-does-not-allow-additional-observation-fields/51336/1 "2024-05-11T00:47:21Z")

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Please fill out the following sections to the best of your ability, it will help us investigate bugs if we have this information at the outset. Screenshots are especially helpful, so please provide those if you can.

**Platform** (Android, iOS, Website): website

**App version number** , if a mobile app issue (shown under Settings or About):

**Browser** , if a website issue (Firefox, Chrome, etc) :

**URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages**:

**Screenshots of what you are seeing** (instructions for taking a screenshot on computers and mobile devices: [https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/](https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/)):

**Description of problem** (please provide a set of steps we can use to replicate the issue, and make as many as you need.):

Step 1: Go to this URL (it may not work as contents change with new observations) [https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?reviewed=true&quality\_grade=needs\_id%2Cresearch&page=50&place\_id=18&verifiable=true&taxon\_id=47782&hrank=species](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?reviewed=true&quality_grade=needs_id%2Cresearch&page=50&place_id=18&verifiable=true&taxon_id=47782&hrank=species)

Step 1.5: Push the first observation

Step 2: Go to the “Annotations” tab

Step 3: Notice it says “Observer does not allow additional observation fields”

Step 4: Push the right arrow repeated to go to other observations. The notice above remains regardless of whether other users have this flag set, preventing annotators from adding fields where they should be addable.

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**Author:** ![natev](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/natev/32/29855_2.png) [@natev](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/natev)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 1:16am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/erroneous-observer-does-not-allow-additional-observation-fields/51336/2 "2024-05-11T01:16:42Z")

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I’ve experienced this before, it’s a browser issue (not specific to any one browser though) rather than an iNaturalist issue to my knowledge. Can indeed be annoying.

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**Author:** ![scarletskylight](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/scarletskylight/32/34437_2.png) [@scarletskylight](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/scarletskylight)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2025, 3:22am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/erroneous-observer-does-not-allow-additional-observation-fields/51336/3 "2025-02-24T03:22:42Z")

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Hopefully bumping this with my comment, as I experienced this tonight for the first time.

I can open the observation in another tab and add the observation field, but everything in my identify queue is grayed out with the message you describe. I’ve not seen this before tonight, but it makes sense that perhaps it got cached as a value from something I identified earlier tonight.