Drupal Form in Block will NOT call Submit or Validate handlers

Question

Let me start by saying I have seen quite a few similar threads, and I have tried everything I've found so far, with none of them working.

My brother wanted a contact form to be in the footer of his site, so it gets rendered on every page. I didn't think this would be an issue, so I created a custom form and rendered it in a block. It looks great, but when I went to add in the validation and submit handlers, none of them work.

Here is what I currently have.

function opal_contact_form() {
  $form['name'] = array(
    '#type' => 'textfield',
    '#title' => 'name',
    '#required' => true,
    '#default_value' => '',
    '#attributes' => array('placeholder' => 'Name'),
  );
  $form['email'] = array(
    '#type' => 'textfield',
    '#title' => 'Email',
    '#required' => true,
    '#default_value' => '',
    '#attributes' => array('placeholder' => 'Email'),
  );
  $form['phone'] = array(
    '#type' => 'textfield',
    '#title' => 'Phone',
    '#attributes' => array('placeholder' => 'Phone'),
    '#default_value' => '',
  );
  $form['company'] = array(
    '#type' => 'textfield',
    '#title' => 'Company',
    '#attributes' => array('placeholder' => 'Company'),
  );
  $form['topic'] = array(
    '#type' => 'textfield',
    '#title' => 'Topic',
    '#attributes' => array('placeholder' => 'Topic'),
    '#default_value' => '',
  );
  $form['message'] = array(
    '#type' => 'textarea',
    '#title' => 'Message',
    '#required' => true,
    '#default_value' => '',
    '#rows' => 3,
    '#attributes' => array('placeholder' => 'Your message...'),
  );
   $form['submit'] = array(
    '#type' => 'submit',
    '#value' => t('Submit'),
  );

  //$form['#submit'][] = 'opal_contact_form_submit';
  //$form['actions']['submit']["#submit"][] = "opal_contact_form_submit";
  kpr($form);
  return $form;
}

function opal_contact_form_validate($form, &$form_state) {
  kpr($form);
  dd('this is from the validate');
  exit();
}

function opal_contact_form_submit($form, &$form_state) {
  kpr($form);
  dd('this is from the submit');
  exit();
}

I don't think this is relevant, but here is the block rendering part.

function opal_blocks_block_view($delta) {
  $block = array();

  switch ($delta) {
    case 'contact_form':
      $block['subject'] = t('');
      $block['content'] = build_contact_form();
      break;
  }

  return $block;
 }

 function build_contact_form() {
   $form = drupal_get_form('opal_contact_form');
   $html = drupal_render($form);

   return $html;
 }

The parts commented out in the form definition are suggestions I found elsewhere and tried. I've never had to do anything special for a standard page form, except add _validate and _submit to the name of the form in order to get a validation and submit handler to work. Perhaps things work differently when rendered in a block?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

EDIT

I found the problem in a theme function that I didn't include in the initial post cause i didn't think it would have anything to do with it, but I obvious was wrong. I am still not sure why this is causing the problem, but when I comment it out, it works fine. I just wanted my form to be displayed in 2 columns.

function opal_blocks_theme() {
  return array (
    'opal_contact_form' => array(
      'render element' => 'form'
    ),
  );
}

function theme_opal_contact_form($variables) {
  $form = $variables['form'];
  $output = '';
  $output .= '<h2>We would love to hear from you:</h2>';
  $output .= '<div class="form-left col-sm-6">';
  $output .= drupal_render($form['name']);
  $output .= drupal_render($form['email']);
  $output .= drupal_render($form['phone']);
  $output .= drupal_render($form['company']);
  $output .= '</div>';

  $output .= '<div class="form-right col-sm-6">';
  $output .= drupal_render($form['topic']);
  $output .= drupal_render($form['message']);
  $output .= drupal_render($form['submit']);
  $output .= '</div>';

  return $output;
}

Answer 1

You forget to render technical form fields: form_id, form_build_id, etc. As fix I suggest you to add the following to your theme function:

$output .= '<div class="element-hidden">' . drupal_render_children($form) . '</div>';

Answer 2

Those are the only 3 differences I can see between (working) block forms I have written in the past and your code.

1) What are the exit(); lines there for? Maybe try removing those?

2) I usually also define $form and $form_state in the original form function.

3) I do usually add the render array straight to the block content, maybe prerendering that as html causes some interference? (bit unlikely but worth a try)

function opal_blocks_block_view($delta) {
  $block = array();

  switch ($delta) {
    case 'contact_form':
      $block['subject'] = t('');
      $block['content']['form'] = drupal_get_form('opal_contact_form'); // Block content can handle renderable arrays, saves you a couple of lines of coding
      break;
  }

  return $block;
 }