"DATA_RETRIEVED" state & Trouble converting to .xlsx
Hi,
It seems that my experiment has a couple of problems, and I would really appreciate any help.
First, I think I am getting several invalid data from my participants, and I am not sure why. I had 8 participants complete my online OpenSesame experiment, but when I check the "Results" on JATOS, only 3 have the state "FINISHED." The rest of them are mostly "DATA_RETRIEVED," with two showing "FAIL (It's not allowed to reload this component (ID: 16951). Study (ID: 11927) is finished.)." I wonder how to prevent this from happening.
One thing I recall from interacting with my participants was that a number of them mentioned being stuck with the following page after completing the experiment:
This page did not disappear even after 20 minutes or so, so those participants had to just close the window. I suspect this might have resulted in a number of "DATA_RETRIEVED" results.
Second, I am having difficulty converting the .txt files to .xlsx files. When I tried exporting all the results as .jrzip and clicked on "Convert OSWeb results to .csv/xlsx" in OpenSesame, most of the time nothing happened. When something did occur, it was the following error message, which I don't understand:
I also tried converting the .txt files using online converters as well as Excel, but it didn't work as intended. The end product looked like this:
I would really appreciate any help, as I have another group of participants scheuduled for tomorrow. Thank you so much.
Yoonah
Comments
Hi Yoonah,
It's difficult to tell without being able to debug your study. There is something clearly going wrong, making the experiment get stuck. Some people close the browser window (probably those with "data retrieved"), as you say, and some trying to reload the window ("failed" results).
Given that you programmed your study on OSWeb, you should ask them about it. I'll move your message to their forum.
They will also be able to answer about converting the results.
Best
Elisa
Hi Yoonah!
About your first question, the invalid data one, my first thought is that you result data are too large for your participants Internet connection or your JATOS server. JATOS shows this "Transferring data" pop-up at the end of an experiment while it sends the data in the background to the JATOS server. Often if the data aren't large it goes quick enough so that JATOS doesn't even show this message. Do you know the size of your result data?
Have you tested your study with a slow internet connection? You can easily do this in your browser's dev tools, just google "browser dev tools network throttling".
Best,
Kristian
Hi!
Thank you Elisa and Kristian for your responses.
Regarding Kristian's question about the size of my result data, the valid ("FINISHED") .txt data file for each participant is about 4,500KB. The size of the .txt files with "DATA_RETRIEVED" states varies from 1KB to 4,500KB.
I tested my experiment with a slow 3G connection as you suggested, and I didn't encounter any problem - The "Transferring data" page disappeared within a few seconds. Given also that my participants didn't have issues with their Zoom connection (they had their Zoom camera on with their phones while working on the experiment with their laptops), I don't really think it's an Internet connection problem. I suspect it is a problem with my JATOS server as you mentioned, and I wonder if having fewer participants conducting the experiment simultaneously might help. Previously, 3-4 participants were in the experiment at the same time.
Also, do you have any ideas about how to convert the .txt data to .xlsx? Even if I do obtain valid data, it would be meaningless if I am unable to actually see the data in Excel or SPSS... I sincerely appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Yoonah
Sorry Yoonah, for the late reply. I agree, if you do not encounter any problems while testing with a 3G connection, it looks like your server's resources aren't enough. Do you know the specs of your server? And, yes, fewer participants at the same time can help.
But I have no clue about converting txt to xlsx. Sorry!
Best,
Kristian
Hi, I have also come across this problem.
I tried to replicate the problem where participants getting stuck on "Transferring your data". If I made the system loose connection to Internet briefly I got stuck on the same screen indefinitely. When I go back to JATOS the trial have the status: DATA_RETRIEVED and the data is complete up until the outage of Internet.
I don't know if this is a problem with OSweb or with JATOS. Would it be possible for JATOS to check if the connection at the end and update the data if the task have lost connection to the server?
Hi SpacePinguins, better to start a new question. Here it probably get lost. But it might be related to issue https://github.com/JATOS/JATOS/issues/304 and this is solved in JATOS version 3.8.6. Best, Kristian
Thank you for letting me know!
Very timely update as our data collections are about to begin!