Millisecond Forums » Millisecond Forums » Inquisit 4 » Initialization error

Initialization error

Joel Cavallo — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 12:07:37 GMT

Hello, my inquisit license expired yesterday and was renewed today. I have a participant who is now trying to use the web script that has been working for one year and it is giving the following two errors:

#1 Direct2D Error: 0x80070000e Not enough storage is available to complete this operation. Line 605 win/Direct2DGraphics.cpp

#2 Unable to initialize item number 5. Verify the item exists and is correctly define.

The participant tried running the script on a second computer with the same error. Any insight into this issue would be most appreciated. Thanks.

RE: Initialization error

Dave — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 12:07:37 GMT

Any image editing application has the ability to re-size images. Use the one you are most comfortable / familiar with and consult its documentation if necessary.

For example, when using Photoshop, instructions can be found here: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/image-size-resolution.html#change_pixel_dimensions_of_an_image

The steps will generally be very similar in any other application.

RE: Initialization error

Joel Cavallo — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 11:55:21 GMT

Thanks. What is the best method to alter the resolution?

RE: Initialization error

Dave — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 11:44:02 GMT

Most of your images have a resolution of approx. 3000 by 2250 pixels. You will probably not encounter too many machines among your participants that run displays at that resolution or higher. Additionally, in most trials a given image doesn't cover the whole screen, but less than 50% of it. I would recommend finding some middle ground, i.e., going for a resolution that still looks okay when scaled-up to extremely high-res displays, but doesn't require massive down-scaling (and waste of graphics memory) on lower-res screens. With that in mind, I'd say you can probably reduce the images' resolution by 30 to 40 percent without incurring massive loss of quality.

RE: Initialization error

Joel Cavallo — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 11:34:39 GMT

Ok, as far as the picture resolution goes, I guess I just reduced the size of the images and not the resolution. What is the most appropriate way to change the resolution for all images and what resolution setting allows the images to look good on a variety of screens (as we are having participants run the program on various computers)? Thanks.

RE: Initialization error

Dave — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 10:51:17 GMT

As far as I can determine from the web experiment's settings and the image files currently on the server, the only change has been the Inquisit Web version. The files' EXIF and other metadata appears unchanged, as does their resolution.

Looking at the error logs ( see https://www.millisecond.com/myaccount/logs/errors.aspx?webscriptid=10033&webscriptname=EMACAll3TasksVer2 in your account ) insufficient memory due to the images' resolution and the required down-scaling remains a distinct possibility.

The logs further indicate (see the version column https://www.millisecond.com/myaccount/logs/participants.aspx?webscriptid=10033&webscriptname=EMACAll3TasksVer2 ) that the participant is still using an outdated version. Have him/her download and install the latest web player version via the link on the launch page.

Hope this helps.

RE: Initialization error

Joel Cavallo — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 09:23:28 GMT

I've tried all three of the options you listed before with no luck. The participant is still getting error messages while trying to run the script. The error keeps saying "unable to initialize item number 5" The error also occurs with item #8.

Again, the link to the script is:

http://research.millisecond.com/dewitlab/EMACAll3tasksVer2.web

Thank you in advance for you help.

RE: Initialization error

Joel Cavallo — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 07:18:37 GMT

Ok, I unregistered the script and registered it again with all of the changes you suggested. I'll update this post once I hear back from the participant. Thanks.

RE: Initialization error

Joel Cavallo — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 06:53:24 GMT

When I follow the steps you outlined, I'm only able to select version 4.0.7.0. Thoughts?

RE: Initialization error

Dave — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 02:02:40 GMT

Log in to your account, go to the web scripts section, click the edit button next to the experiment. In the wizard, select the version in the 1st step, click finish.

RE: Initialization error

Joel Cavallo — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 19:09:49 GMT

Thanks for looking at the script. Quick question, how do I go about updating the launch page and run an updated version of Inquisit?

RE: Initialization error

Dave — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 15:08:48 GMT

Okay, I see no totally obvious problem with the script and the images, and I cannot re-produce the error either. Here's what I would suggest:

(1) Run the images through a meta-data / EXIF data removal tool. Especially older Windows systems can be terribly picky when encountering images with malformed metadata headers.
(2) The images are quite large (resolution-wise). This can theoretically lead to problems on relatively weak systems with little (dedicated) graphics memory. This becomes even more exacerbated when the respective systems' monitor is small and low-res. The more drastic down- or up-scaling Inquisit has to do, the higher the memory costs. If possible, reduce the images resolution.
(3) I'd also recommend updating your launch page to use the latest Inquisit version (4.0.8.0), which *may* help here as well.

Hopefully one or several of those measures will do the trick.

RE: Initialization error

Joel Cavallo — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 15:01:48 GMT

Just fyi, the participant has used chrome, firefox and internet explorer on both windows 7 and 10 machines. Thanks.

RE: Initialization error

Dave — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 14:37:46 GMT

Thanks for the link, I'll see if I can pin down the problem.

I can guarantee that it has nothing to do with the license renewal whatsoever. As already stated, it's perfectly possible that the problem at least in part is with the participant's machine.

RE: Initialization error

Joel Cavallo — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 14:29:36 GMT

I forgot to mention that there are a total of 3 tasks, Dot probe, VAS, and Forced Choice. The participant is able to complete the dot probe and VAS, but the error occurs when he tries to complete the Forced Choice task.

RE: Initialization error

Joel Cavallo — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 14:27:25 GMT

Ok here is the link. The quandary is that we've never had this issue before the license expiration.

http://research.millisecond.com/dewitlab/EMACAll3tasksVer2.web

RE: Initialization error

Dave — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 13:57:40 GMT

Several issues could be at play here:

(1) Invalid metadata in the respective image file ( cf. https://www.millisecond.com/forums/Topic16265.aspx ).
(2) A broken display driver or other component on the participant's machine (cf. https://www.google.com/search?q=Direct2D+Error%3A+0x80070000e&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 for various examples).
(3) The specific image is too high-res for the participant's machine (the error hints at insufficient memory).

Without the link to the specific script and the respective image, I can't say more.