thanks for reply, but have to ask what do you mean to many joins? and no I haven't created any calculations, yet. following the videos examples of wrong way of creating and then right way, right having created a table for drop down options in combo boxes. wrong way (not all the time) was a combo box with a list, it was working that way, but when I created a table for certain drop downs, now I get that beep message. As the ex. table I mentioned RoomLocT, I created the ID field, created the foreign key on the order table, linked both tables together, deleted the old combo box and created the new one following Richards vid Expert 1 vid 3 and 4. it shows the drop down choices but can't choose anything.
I'm totally lost now hahaha

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Reply from Alex Hedley:

Try adding 1 Field at a time to your Query, see if the recordset is updatable until it isn't they you'll know which Field is causing the problem