Sorting issues, sorting not complete

I have a database of about 1500 records. It was started at
least 25 years ago and has now been converted to Panorama X . When I try to sort the all of the data or just a subset of the data, it will sort in “sort of” groups. So, for example in a selected set of about 200 that covers records from most of the full database I will get about 25 sorted fine and then it starts again for maybe 70. Then it starts again. Often there are 4 or 5 sort of random between. This happened when I was using Panorama 6 but did not pursue it. The issue seems to happen only with text fields. When I sort on numerical values (a field that gives a sequential number to all records) it seems to work. I have also noticed that the sorted groups seem to associated or grouped with similar entry times so the first group were old entries and the last group are from recent entries.
What is going on?

Gary Yonaites has a posted an useful tool in the Panorama X Database Exchange (found in the Help menu): “Reveal Invisible Text”. Gary’s database will help you to find invisible characters that could change a text field’s sort order.

The sort order can also be altered if the sort field fields is not set to “Text” but to “Choices”.

If your database has summary records that weren’t included in the selection, the summary records will still group the database, even though they are invisible. When a database is grouped, each group is sorted separately.

You get the sort you expect when you sort that sequential field, because the groups are in the order they were in when you sequenced the database.

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I think David’s idea of summary records is the most likely culprit. If you remove the summary records you’ll probably fix your sorting problem. This help page explains how to remove them.

Thank you Got it. I was wondering why some lines were green.