MDAC error messages, and what each field accepts
Checked 5 November 2026 by Darius Cheung. Independent guide, not a government website.
Most MDAC errors are pop-ups from checks in the page itself, so they're fixable. An address needs at least three words and can't be NA or NIL, a postcode needs five digits, and the two emails must match. Your name takes only English letters and spaces. If Submit seems to do nothing, you probably haven't finished the Drag To Verify slider.
The form's messages
These are copied from the page's own code.
| Message | What it means | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| "Please enter Address (In Malaysia) properly." | The address has fewer than three words. The check counts words separated by spaces. | Write the full address, for example the street number, street and area. |
| "NA, N/A, NULL, NIL is not allowed for Address (In Malaysia)" | A placeholder was typed instead of an address. | Enter a real address. |
| "Postcode cannot less than 5 digit!" | The box needs five digits. | Type all five. Look up your hotel's if needed. |
| "Your emails do not match. Please try again." | The two email boxes differ, so the second is emptied. | Retype it. Pasting is blocked, so check each character. |
| "Please enter a valid email address." | The address failed a pattern check, and the box is emptied. | Check for spaces and the @ sign. The pattern allows letters, digits, dots, underscores and dashes before the @. |
| "Please verify the captcha before proceeding" | The slider hasn't been done, or it was reset. | Drag the puzzle piece into place. It says "Try It Again" if it misses. |
| "Nationality / Citizenship selected error" | The site failed to load phone codes for your choice. It's a server message. | Reload the page and try again later. |
| "State selected error" or "City selected error" | The same, for the city or postcode list. | Reload and try again. |
| "Please enter Name." | That field is empty. The form stops at the first empty field it finds, and other fields have messages like it. | Fill it in, then press Submit again. More may follow. |
What each field accepts
The form filters keys as you type, so an unaccepted character simply doesn't appear. That can feel like a broken keyboard.
| Field | Accepts | Max |
|---|---|---|
| Name | English letters and spaces. No hyphen, apostrophe or accent. | 60 |
| Passport number | Letters, digits and spaces | 12 |
| Mobile number | Digits only. The code is a separate list. | 12 |
| Flight or vessel number | Letters, digits, spaces and / - @ ( ) , ' | 30 |
| Address lines | Letters, digits, spaces and / - @ ( ) , ' | 100 |
| Postcode | Digits | 5 |
| A normal address | 100 |
Can't type your name as it's written?
Use the machine-readable lines at the bottom of your passport's photo page. They drop apostrophes and replace hyphens and accents, which is what a form like this expects. So O'BRIEN becomes OBRIEN, and SMITH-JONES becomes SMITH JONES. This is our reading, not official advice.
Dates that won't change
The date boxes open a calendar and can't be typed in. Birth dates stop at yesterday, passport expiry starts from today, and arrival runs from today to two days ahead. A greyed-out arrival date means you're too early: come back when it's within range. Picking a new arrival date clears your departure date, so pick that again.
A phone code that changed by itself
Choosing a nationality or place of birth reloads the phone code list and selects that country's code. If your phone is from elsewhere, set the code again afterwards.
On a phone
One forum user who filed on mobile wrote "Probably easier on a laptop". They blamed the number of drop-down lists. The form has long lists and a slider, so a bigger screen helps if you have one.
Questions people ask
Why can't I paste into the MDAC?
The form switches off pasting in several boxes, including name, passport, email and flight. You'll need to type them.
Why won't the MDAC accept my hyphenated name?
The name box only lets through English letters and spaces. Use a space, as your passport's machine-readable lines suggest.
Does Reset clear everything?
Yes. It empties the form and resets the slider, so avoid it near the end.
Once the form has taken your answers, you shouldn't need to work this out twice. ArrivalFiller keeps what you typed and refills it next trip, ready to check.
Add ArrivalFiller to Chrome, freeWhere this comes from
Rules change, so check the official site before you travel. Where we quote a form's message, we copied it from the form's own public code. Some messages may rarely appear, and we don't run test submissions on government forms.
- MDAC registration page and its scripts (official site, read by us on 5 Nov 2026)
- Australian Frequent Flyer: Malaysia Digital Arrival Card thread (traveller reports, unofficial)