'UnicodeDecodeError' - Error message when trying to open OpenSesame file

zoe_e

Hi everyone,

I just tried to open an OpenSesame experiment, which I haven't looked into in a while and got this error message:

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xbe in position 11: invalid start byte

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to deal with this. Is there anything I can do to open the file?

In case this is relevant: the experiment contains a digit span test to test working memory capacity and a self-paced reading task.

Alternatively, I was wondering if I can import a study downloaded from JATOS to OpenSesame, somehow. I uploaded the OS Experiment in question to JATOS a few months ago, where it seems to work fine, and I was hoping I could solve my problem with opening the file, by simply downloading it from JATOS. Is it possible to open files downloaded from JATOS in OpenSesame, and if yes, how would I proceed here?

Thank you very much in advance,

Zoé

sebastiaan

Hi @zoe_e ,

This error usually indicates that the file is corrupted, or at least that it's not a valid .osexp file. However, without seeing the file it's difficult to say for sure. Could you attach the experiment file here?

Alternatively, I was wondering if I can import a study downloaded from JATOS to OpenSesame

Absolutely. You can Export the study in JATOS. This gives you a .jzip file, which you can extract. Inside the extracted content, a few folders deep, you will find a .osexp file which you can open in OpenSesame.

— Sebastiaan