I was told on a couple of calls that my application was waiting for the processing department to "attach" my CHL-100 to my application.scratch that idea, dps says re-doing them will really foul up things...
On one of those calls, the person first said my CHL-100 had not been received, but then told me the same thing - don't resubmit it, that wasn't recommended.
This past Friday, I called again. That was at about 38 days after my documents had been acknowledged as received. This time, they transferred me to a processing specialist.
The first thing the specialist said was that all applications uploaded in December had been issued, denied, or had further inquiries sent back to the applicants a couple of weeks ago. No December applications were just waiting in the queue.
She said my CHL-100 was logged as having been received, which explained why I didn't get mail saying I needed to submit it, or why nobody had told me I needed to upload it.
However, the CHL-100 itself was nowhere to be found at DPS, which was why my application had run aground.
The specialist gave me a direct email address to send the scanned CHL-100 to.
In about ten minutes I got return email, confirming the CHL-100 was in hand and that all work was now complete. My license would be mailed on Tuesday (yesterday).
Yesterday, right on schedule, my status changed on the web site, and now shows all the extra links.
I believe patience is probably the best policy out to about 3 weeks. Normal applications seem to be going through in about ten or fifteen business days, if you have no smudges on the old permanent record.
If you haven't either gotten your CHL, gotten a denial, or been queried for more information by then - well, patience is a virtue. Don't bug them. But at some point things might have run off the rails without any alarms going off.
I sense that what they mean by "attaching" the chl-100 to the application has to do with internal email. I theorize each application is represented with an email message, logging what's been done at each stage, and with attachments for fingerprints, chl-100, ddr214, and whatever other paperwork might be involved. As the application goes through the channels, that email with its attachments gets forwarded, stage by stage.
Somebody may have forwarded my application without hitting the little paperclip button to attach my chl-100 to the email.
But that's all guessing on my part.
It could still take another ten days to get my license. On the other hand, it might be here tomorrow. Only time will tell, but I think it's finally headed my way.