the field is used to hide/show other fields on the same tab (using cb conditional) on registration and edit but does not need to be shown when just viewing the profile. i was aiming to use this field during searches to determine if the fields it hides/shows have been filled so you could search on one generic field instead of all the other fields.

for example:
i would have a field that asks a yes/no question like "do you have work experience?". if yes then fill out some other fields relating to the work experience. You could then search for people that have work experience based on the yes/no field. This field would not need to be shown on the profile as all that needs to be shown are the work experience fields.

because of this moving the field to another tab is not an option. is there another way to achieve this?

I don't know if this would be part of the problem, but I had a similar issue.

I had a list of members with their names and contact info, but could not get the search options to appear. This was because the list's parameters had the "Searchable fields" setting as "Searchable fields, displayed ones only." While the first & last name were searchable fields, the formatname was the field selected to display in the list.

You can change the parameter to all searchable fields or specified searchable fields and pick them. Or, you could revise your list to display the searchable fields you wish to allow.

I wasn't saying it was a bug, just a control that took way too long to find and no documentation about it.

Siala may have actually encountered the bug, but I thought I would share my solution for others who might have come across the same cross-up as I did.