Question: inconsistent behavior from maple

I am new to maple, having recently made the switch from mathCAD, and I am having problems getting the basics to do what I think they ought to be doing.

I am trying to get maple to go step by step through a derivation of a formula. In one line I define a variable

U4 := expression

In the next line I will call the same variable and take the derivative of it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it evaluates to zero when it should not. I can't seem to pin down a pattern of when it does and does not work. I will change something that is not working, and then change it back, and it will work. Am i assigning my variables inconsistently? 

I took a screencapture of the worksheet in question. Thanks in advance for the help.