Millisecond Forums

Data missing

https://forums.millisecond.com/Topic22695.aspx

By ktahaney - 10/18/2017

I recently had an issue with 2 participants in my study in which their data was not saved. We're using the desktop version of Inquisit 4. Based on the Inquisit activity log, the task script (IAT) was started but the data never saved. Also based on the log file, it seems that the task didn't fully initialize, however according to the research assistant, the participant completed the task in full with no errors appearing in the program. I've looked to see whether the task was saved in multiple locations and therefore the data could exist elsewhere, but this is not the case. There were no issues with either of the other tasks used with each participant. This error is no longer occurring, however I want to find the source of the issue so it doesn't happen again in the future. Has this error occurred for others? Any ideas on what could've caused this? I've pasted the log file for one participant below in case it's useful.

Initializing...
2017-09-20T16:31:31.765InquisitLab4.0.9.02657System Platform='Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64'MemAvail=7179144MemTotal=8310540CPUSpeed=3392TimerResolution=0.0003018672906867300IPAddress=128.230.66.128MacAddress=6C-0B-84-98-C2-F42017-09-20T16:31:47.146InquisitLab4.0.9.02657Script='\\hd.ad.syr.edu\03\1318ed\Documents\IAT approach avoid 2\IAT1a.exp'GroupID=1SubjectID=1210Graphics=Direct2DColorDepth=32ScreenWidth=1024ScreenHeight=768RefreshRate=85VidoeSync=DXGIWaitForVBlankMode
2017-09-20T16:31:47.677InquisitLab4.0.9.02657Script='\\hd.ad.syr.edu\03\1318ed\Documents\IAT approach avoid 2\IAT1a.exp'GroupID=1SubjectID=1210Script starting...
2017-09-20T16:49:20.663InquisitLab4.0.9.0265764bitReleaseCompileDate='Dec 29 2015'CompileTime='10:51:20'Initializing...
2017-09-20T16:49:20.663InquisitLab4.0.9.02657System Platform='Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64'MemAvail=7193392MemTotal=8310540CPUSpeed=3392TimerResolution=0.0003018672906867300IPAddress=128.230.66.128MacAddress=6C-0B-84-98-C2-F4
By Dave - 10/18/2017

ktahaney - Wednesday, October 18, 2017
I recently had an issue with 2 participants in my study in which their data was not saved. We're using the desktop version of Inquisit 4. Based on the Inquisit activity log, the task script (IAT) was started but the data never saved. Also based on the log file, it seems that the task didn't fully initialize, however according to the research assistant, the participant completed the task in full with no errors appearing in the program. I've looked to see whether the task was saved in multiple locations and therefore the data could exist elsewhere, but this is not the case. There were no issues with either of the other tasks used with each participant. This error is no longer occurring, however I want to find the source of the issue so it doesn't happen again in the future. Has this error occurred for others? Any ideas on what could've caused this? I've pasted the log file for one participant below in case it's useful.

Initializing...
2017-09-20T16:31:31.765InquisitLab4.0.9.02657System Platform='Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64'MemAvail=7179144MemTotal=8310540CPUSpeed=3392TimerResolution=0.0003018672906867300IPAddress=128.230.66.128MacAddress=6C-0B-84-98-C2-F42017-09-20T16:31:47.146InquisitLab4.0.9.02657Script='\\hd.ad.syr.edu\03\1318ed\Documents\IAT approach avoid 2\IAT1a.exp'GroupID=1SubjectID=1210Graphics=Direct2DColorDepth=32ScreenWidth=1024ScreenHeight=768RefreshRate=85VidoeSync=DXGIWaitForVBlankMode
2017-09-20T16:31:47.677InquisitLab4.0.9.02657Script='\\hd.ad.syr.edu\03\1318ed\Documents\IAT approach avoid 2\IAT1a.exp'GroupID=1SubjectID=1210Script starting...
2017-09-20T16:49:20.663InquisitLab4.0.9.0265764bitReleaseCompileDate='Dec 29 2015'CompileTime='10:51:20'Initializing...
2017-09-20T16:49:20.663InquisitLab4.0.9.02657System Platform='Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64'MemAvail=7193392MemTotal=8310540CPUSpeed=3392TimerResolution=0.0003018672906867300IPAddress=128.230.66.128MacAddress=6C-0B-84-98-C2-F4


Thanks for posting the log. The script path suggests that the script is being run from a network share

Script='\\hd.ad.syr.edu\03\1318ed\Documents\IAT approach avoid 2\IAT1a.exp

and I assume the data is (supposed to be) written to that network location as well. Correct?

If so, I have seen a few (very few) instances in the past where network shares failed in a weird way, and in essence became temporarily unavailable without the operating system (and by extension Inquisit) noticing. In such a case, both the operating system and Inquisit will "think" the data was saved properly, whereas in reality it was not.

Here, for example, you can find one such instance documented: https://www.millisecond.com/forums/FindPost8169.aspx

"We found that the Samba server went haywire in a very rare way. It refused new connections and at some point stopped to write data for established connections. However, these established connections remained in kind of a read-only state where a) files could still be opened and b) write access did not bring up errors. We deduced that from the client and server logs."

Hope this helps.