Update that might give you some hope:

The Houston Office just telephoned. They did not have the DS-64 form that I filled out online when I applied on June 15. Nor did they have my passport card which I surrendered to the post office when filing on June 15. But were very helpful. I followed the nice man's instructions, and filled out a hard copy of another DS-64, signed the form, sent the form along with a check for the 17.56 for them to overnight and a letter explaining the situation and having spoken to them, by overnight mail to Houston. They should have it tomorrow. He assured me that once in hand they would issue my passport.

Hope that this helps you and that your situation resolves. I will completely believe that mine does when I have the passport in hand. Hopefully by the end of this week, I will update here.

The very best of luck. I certainly know how stressful this is for you.

That's very good news! We also filled out the DS-64 form online so I hope there isn't a glitch in the system. We haven't heard from any Passport office yet but hopefully soon. Cheers!

This may be a silly question, though I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, and I know most of you have already applied. But I noticed that there are hand-written passport applications in addition to ones generated by the passport wizard after filling out the info online. The latter application generates a barcode on the top left part of the first page. I'll post photos to illustrate the differences. My question is: do you think that sending out the application from the online wizard with the barcode makes processing it faster? I would think that the barcode contains all the info, which means they wouldn't have to type it by hand.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...349603b2fc.png
DS-11 generated from online wizard with barcode
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ac3842d1fd.png
DS-11 pdf to be filled out by hand (no barcode)

The barcode allows f:star:ster processing because the data should already be in the system when the form is received and the barcode is scanned vs. having to have OCR read it or having to have someone type it in from the manually filled form.

That's what I'm thinking, too. I'm wondering if it does actually have a notable impact on processing times but I don't think there are stats for that.

Yes. Additionally online filled form with a barcode eliminates error/s.

Is there a reason you do not wish to or unable to fill out this form online?

No reason at all. I'm just surprised that more people aren't doing it online. Probably would've saved a lot of time and I'm wondering what percentage of backlogged applications have the barcodes. The only thing that would give me some pause is that the online generated forms and the ones at the post offices have 2019 as their expiration dates, but it still seems like they're using them. Meanwhile, the new DS-11 PDF has 2023 as the expiration date. I'd still go for the one generated online with the barcode nevertheless in the hope that the State Department doesn't suddenly change the forms or mandate the new ones by the time I'm (hopefully) able to apply.

It should eliminate OCR scanning errors and delays stemming from that and manual entry of information due to scanning failures. I doubt it is any faster than a clean scan, though.

I did mine using the assisted entry and have a barcode. I'll report back on the time it actually took.

Since any process involving human intervention, which OCR typically does, has the greatest potential for inducing errors, I will always use whatever method offers the least incidence of human involvement.

Yes, the barcode is specific to your application, so it would speed things along. Also, there's notation discouraging you from making corrections once the barcode form is printed out.

Yep. Although annoyingly, the acceptance facility I went to insisted on making handwritten changes anyway. They insisted listing an emergency contact was mandatory.

I'm guessing that'll add even more delay as the data will now have to be entered manually.

UPDATE!
Both of our State Senators offices did as promised. The first one requested a rush in the inquiry and the second Senator was able to email me last night with an update which said the passport would be mailed no later than today. We ended up cancelling our trip due to the uncertainty of when the passport would arrive and to get the full refund and be able to rebook for next month. I kept checking the site only for the status to still say “processing”. Guess what popped up in the mail today? Yep, the passport 😒 Status is still at processing. Our trip was supposed to be 7/24 so in all that was about 5 weeks for us which isn’t bad. Wish the status system was accurate.

Good luck all!

@MyeshiaQ Glad you received the passport and refund. Sucks that you had to cancel your trip. Thank you for the update!

Three weeks is almost miraculous given the current delays.