I don't know if it's the code though. Here's a more detailed explanation, maybe I can clarify some things.
There is a main form that houses one subform. The main form contains about 5 unbound text boxes. These boxes take any string the user wants to enter like, "dog" or "cat" and then searches the database for that word. These results are displayed in the subform below and the user can browse through all of them using record navigation. This search code is all done through the large "Custom Search" thread here at this forum. Basically it just constructs an SQL statement and passes it to the query. The subform's source is that query.
So basically I enter some stuff into the fields and click search. The result? Nothing at all happens. When I click the search button it has the code "Me.subform.refresh" (I've tried requery also) and it just "blinks" at me but doesn't actually update the data. When I open the query with the search form open, it displays the same SQL string as last time. But when I exit the search form, the SQL statement changes according to what I wanted it to be earlier. So my observation thus far is that the SQL statement doesn't change whilst the search window is open, therefore no matter how many times I refresh, it'll just refresh what was on the query earlier.