JATOS study resulting in blank white browser page

Hippokrampus

Hello everyone!

For my thesis I decided to create an online study using OSWeb and JATOS.

The implementation worked out pretty well and my professor organized a Linux Redhat server from our university.

However, we're experiencing some problems now. Whenever we try to run the study (directly on our own JATOS server or via a worker link) the experiment doesn't start but only shows a blank white browser page and nothing happens.

Here is what we did so far:

1.) I created the study using OpenSesame (v3.2.8); the study displays 210 images to participants, images are in the file pool

2.) I exported the study directly as a .zip file using the OSWeb exportation tool in OpenSesame

3.) I already imported the study on the JATOS tryout server and it works perfectly fine there

4.) We also tried out some other example studies on our own server which seem to work fine as well

But:

5.) We imported the study on our own JATOS server (which is being administered by my professor) and here the described problem occurs; somehow we just don't get the study to start ...

Any idea what we could have done wrong here? Maybe an error with the study_assets_root folder or loading the images?

We found that JATOS properly creates the assets folder of the OSWeb experiment with a long cryptic name such as "a89ed34bdd..." and it also contains some subfolders like css, img, js, an index.html and the OpenSesame experiment file. Img only contains opensesame.png and warning.png.

Do we maybe have to add the images manually somewhere?

If you need any more details, please tell me. Maybe you could help us out :)

Ultimately, we plan to write the study up as a paper and we would love to give both OSWeb and JATOS some credit for the amazing work.

Thanks very much in advance,

Cheers!

Lenny

kri

Hi Lenny,

I like that your professor set up your JATOS server with Linux - not many professors would do this (or can do this) :D .

I have 2 questions:

• What does the JATOS test page say (my-jatos-domain/jatos/test)? Everythink OK there?
• When you run your study on your JATOS server and you get the white page, are there any errors in your browser's console?

We found that JATOS properly creates the assets folder of the OSWeb experiment with a long cryptic name such as "a89ed34bdd..." and it also contains some subfolders like css, img, js, an index.html and the OpenSesame experiment file. Img only contains opensesame.png and warning.png.

I don't know your experiment nor OSWeb very much, but you told me that you have around 200 images. Your images should be in the file system somewhere. My first guess would be, like probably guessed too, in the img folder. But I don't know much about OSWeb - so many it stores it somewhere else. But if missing images are the cause for your broken experiment, then there should be errors in the browser's console when you try to run the experiment. What does your browser's console say?

Do we maybe have to add the images manually somewhere?

No.

Best,

Kristian

Hippokrampus

Hi Kristian,

Thanks for the quick reply!

You're right, that's pretty cool :D

To answer your questions:

• JATOS test page says everything OK!
• You're right, there are a couple actually (see image); seems like JATOS doesn't get permission, no?

True! So I can't find them listed anywhere, but we thought that OSWeb might just put them somewhere in the study_assets_root subfolder that is created when you import a .zip study in JATOS.

Img only contains opensesame.png and warning.png.

Maybe someone of OSWeb knows if that's correct? Should we see the image files somewhere?

Thanks for your help! :)

Lenny

kri

Hi Lenny,

Hm. You said it runs on cortex.jatos.org, so your study's zip must contain the files (incl images) somewhere.

Seeing your errors I somehow assume OSWeb doesn't get to the part where it loads the images because it's not properly loaded itself (at all?).

But you said you successfully tried to run an example study from http://www.jatos.org/Example-Studies.html, right? So, then JATOS does deliver asset files. Weird! Did you try the OSWeb example studies 'Attentional Capture' and 'Lexical Decision' on your server?

Best

Kristian

Hippokrampus

Hi Kristian,

Hm. You said it runs on cortex.jatos.org, so your study's zip must contain the files (incl images) somewhere.

Correct!

Oh okay, so it may not be a problem concerning the images, but rather loading experiments in general.

I tested out some examples:

• the 'Attentional Capture' (OSWeb) did not work; same errors in console (see image)

• the 'Go-/No-Go' (jsPsych) did not work as well; errors pretty similar here

However, with the latter I couldn't upload by simply importing it; only worked through cloning + exporting (locally) and then importing to the server (see error message).

Hope that helps to narrow down the problem a bit.

So I'm thinking maybe there's something wrong with our server in general here?

Cheers!

Lenny

Hippokrampus

NOTE:

Surprisingly 'Perceptual Metacognition' and 'Invaders with Phaser' examples run fine!

Please ignore the last error message. We already had the Go-/No-Go Task earlier on our server for testing purposes :)

kri

Surprisingly 'Perceptual Metacognition' and 'Invaders with Phaser' examples run fine!

This gets weirder and weirder!

Just to sum it up for me:

• your study: not work
• 'Attentional Capture' (OSWeb): not work
• 'Go-/No-Go' (jsPsych): not work
• 'Perceptual Metacognition': OK (also jsPsych, I think)
• 'Invaders with Phaser': OK (some gaming framework)

Hm, this doesn't make sense to me!

What does your JATOS' log say? You can access it (if you are a JATOS admin) via the URL https://my-jatos-domain/jatos/log?limit=100000 (you can change the limit to show more lines).

Kristian

Hippokrampus

Yes, all correct! It's really strange ...

2020-04-25 17:48:15,270 [INFO] - publix_access - POST /publix/18/heartbeat?srid=91
2020-04-25 17:48:15,235 [INFO] - c.p.JatosBatchChannel - .open: studyId 18, studyResultId 91
2020-04-25 17:48:15,142 [INFO] - c.p.Publix - .getInitData: studyId 18, componentId 26, studyResultId 91
2020-04-25 17:48:15,142 [INFO] - publix_access - GET /publix/18/26/initData?srid=91
2020-04-25 17:48:15,102 [INFO] - c.p.StudyAssets - .versioned: You tried to access the file publix/18/26/css/vendors~osweb.1.3.3.bundle.css but it seems you have no access rights. Maybe this study was never started?
2020-04-25 17:48:15,098 [INFO] - c.p.StudyAssets - .versioned: You tried to access the file publix/18/26/css/osweb.1.3.3.bundle.css but it seems you have no access rights. Maybe this study was never started?
2020-04-25 17:48:15,018 [INFO] - c.p.StudyAssets - .versioned: You tried to access the file publix/18/26/js/jatos.js but it seems you have no access rights. Maybe this study was never started?
2020-04-25 17:48:14,895 [INFO] - c.p.StudyAssets - .versioned: You tried to access the file publix/18/26/js/vendors~osweb.1.3.3.bundle.js but it seems you have no access rights. Maybe this study was never started?
2020-04-25 17:48:14,784 [INFO] - c.p.StudyAssets - .versioned: You tried to access the file publix/18/26/js/osweb.1.3.3.bundle.js but it seems you have no access rights. Maybe this study was never started?
2020-04-25 17:48:14,409 [INFO] - c.p.StudyAssets - .versioned: You tried to access the file publix/18/26/css/vendors~osweb.1.3.3.bundle.css but it seems you have no access rights. Maybe this study was never started?
2020-04-25 17:48:14,405 [INFO] - c.p.StudyAssets - .versioned: You tried to access the file publix/18/26/css/osweb.1.3.3.bundle.css but it seems you have no access rights. Maybe this study was never started?
2020-04-25 17:48:14,401 [INFO] - c.p.StudyAssets - .versioned: You tried to access the file publix/18/26/js/jatos.js but it seems you have no access rights. Maybe this study was never started?
2020-04-25 17:48:14,397 [INFO] - c.p.StudyAssets - .versioned: You tried to access the file publix/18/26/js/vendors~osweb.1.3.3.bundle.js but it seems you have no access rights. Maybe this study was never started?
2020-04-25 17:48:14,393 [INFO] - c.p.StudyAssets - .versioned: You tried to access the file publix/18/26/js/osweb.1.3.3.bundle.js but it seems you have no access rights. Maybe this study was never started?
2020-04-25 17:48:14,189 [INFO] - c.p.w.JatosPublix - .startComponent: studyId 18, componentId 26, studyResultId 91, logged-in user's email my email
2020-04-25 17:48:14,188 [INFO] - publix_access - GET /publix/18/26/start?srid=91
2020-04-25 17:48:14,139 [INFO] - c.p.w.JatosPublix - .startStudy: study (study ID 18, batch ID -1) assigned to worker with ID 2
2020-04-25 17:48:14,138 [INFO] - c.p.w.JatosPublix - .startStudy: studyId 18, batchId -1, logged-in user's email my email
2020-04-25 17:48:14,138 [INFO] - publix_access - GET /publix/18/start?batchId=-1&jatosWorkerId=2
2020-04-25 17:48:14,093 [INFO] - gui_access - GET /jatos/18/run (my email)

Seems like we have a problem with accessing some files, right?

I also added the complete file with placeholders for email adresses if you need it :)

Very thankful for any tips!

Lenny

logfileJATOS.txt

Hippokrampus

I tried to upload the whole file yesterday but it needs some time for verification now.

And by the way, I tested out the study on my DigitalOcean Droplet and it works great there!

So maybe a directory problem with our server?

Thanks :)

Lenny

kri

Sorry for answering so late (I had a lot to do and to be honest I'm out of ideas and needed some time to think about your problem).

I stumbled over this in your log `StudyAssets - .versioned`. It's for quite some time now that StudyAssets has a method called 'versioned'. May I ask what JATOS version you run on your server?

Kristian

Hippokrampus

Hi Kristian,

No worries, same here!

Due to deadlines we now switched to the easier cloud solution.

Thank you for all the effort, really appreciate your support!

Cheers :)

Lenny

kri

You are welcome!

Kristian