Hotfix for multiple forms on same page triggering validation across all fields

Symptom: With ACF 5.11+ and more than one Advanced Forms form on the same page (each with at least one required field), submitting one form runs validation against required fields in the other form too — so the submission fails on fields the user never interacted with.

Cause: ACF 5.11 introduced a validation routine (ensureInvalidFieldVisibility) that scans every .acf-field input on the page rather than scoping to the form being submitted. There’s an open issue on ACF Pro’s repo; this snippet is a hotfix until that’s resolved upstream.

Step 1 — JavaScript hotfix

Save the following as af-acf-validation-hotfix.js somewhere your theme can serve it (e.g. assets/js/ in your theme):

(function ($) {

    // From ACF 5.11 — unchanged.
    var ensureFieldPostBoxIsVisible = function ($el) {
        var $postbox = $el.parents('.acf-postbox');
        if ($postbox.length) {
            var acf_postbox = acf.getPostbox($postbox);
            if (acf_postbox && acf_postbox.isHiddenByScreenOptions()) {
                acf_postbox.$el.removeClass('hide-if-js');
                acf_postbox.$el.css('display', '');
            }
        }
    };

    // From ACF 5.11, modified to scope to the submitting form rather than the whole page.
    var ensureInvalidFieldVisibility = function ($form) {
        $form.find('.acf-field input').each(function () {
            if (!this.checkValidity()) {
                ensureFieldPostBoxIsVisible($(this));
            }
        });
    };

    // Override ACF's onClickSubmit to find the current form and pass it as scope.
    acf.validation.onClickSubmit = function (e, $el) {
        var $form = $el.closest('form');
        if (!$form.length) return;

        ensureInvalidFieldVisibility($form);
        this.set('originalEvent', e);
    };

})(jQuery);

Step 2 — Enqueue on form render

add_action( 'af/form/enqueue', function () {

    // Adjust the path to match where you saved the file.
    $url = get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/assets/js/af-acf-validation-hotfix.js';

    wp_register_script( 'af-acf-validation-hotfix', $url, [ 'acf-input' ] );
    wp_enqueue_script( 'af-acf-validation-hotfix' );

} );

The hotfix only runs on pages where Advanced Forms is enqueueing its own scripts (af/form/enqueue), so it has no effect outside the forms it’s meant to fix.

Remove the hotfix once ACF resolves the upstream issue.