OpenSesame runtime for Android

panos_uol · May 2015

Hi again!!
As many people in here I am using open sesame in a smart-phone to run my EMA. I have posted before here and I received immediate help (thanks for that). Unfortunately another problem has now occurred with my experiment. I went through previous posts in this section but I didn't find something that corresponds to my problem. So here it is:
I have created an experiment which runs in smart-phones (Samsung galaxy). The experiment generally works good, but not always. Some times the app crashes. The problem is that this is entirely random. Some times it works fine. Some times it crashed. Turning the phone off and on again, usually fixed the problem. However I need my app to be stable and work all the time, without the need of my participants to reboot the phone every now and then.... Most of the problems people report here seem to be pretty specific and usually the app does not launch at all in the first place. Mine seems to be quite random.

I attach here the debagging file of one of the trials that failed:
/sdcard/opensesame-autorun.yml
/mnt/sdcard/opensesame-autorun.yml
Launching resources/android/menu.opensesame
openexp.sampler._legacy.init_sound(): sampling freq = 48000, buffer size = 1024
experiment.init_log(): using 'resources/android/defaultlog.csv' as logfile (utf-8)
experiment.run(): experiment started at Tue May 19 17:58:59 2015
opened /sdcard/opensesame-settings.txt for reading
experiment_folder = /sdcard
logfile_folder = /sdcard
opened /sdcard/opensesame-settings.txt for writing
experiment.run(): experiment finished at Tue May 19 17:59:08 2015
Launching /sdcard/Alc_Stroop 0.1.opensesame.tar.gz
openexp.sampler._legacy.init_sound(): sampling freq = 48000, buffer size = 1024
experiment.init_log(): using '/sdcard/subject-23.csv' as logfile (utf-8)
experiment.run(): experiment started at Tue May 19 17:59:12 2015

Any ideas what might be the problem?

Thank you very much in advance!

froukehe · June 2015

I got it working on my ancient Archos Arnova 10b G2!

Many thanks for also providing the APK (the device does not want to connect to Google Play).

And I got my first 'experiment' set up:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/14lbt2ganvidu8w/decision_android.opensesame.tar.gz?dl=0

Knante · June 2015

Hello everyone,

Unfortunately, the keyboard response on my Oneplus One (5.0.2) is not working. It does show up but no proper response is collected. I use the swiftkey app to work around this exact issue but it seems to not longer work. I also tried the standard android key board but that does not solve anything.

Does anyone experience the same problem?

Ninja edit:it does seem to collect some response "by accident", but only after swiping the screen, with some delay and nowhere near the correct key.

sebastiaan · June 2015

Unfortunately, the keyboard response on my Oneplus One (5.0.2) is not working. It does show up but no proper response is collected. I use the swiftkey app to work around this exact issue but it seems to not longer work. I also tried the standard android key board but that does not solve anything.

I've noticed as well that the SwiftKey app doesn't solve the issue any more. I guess it has been updated and now uses the same system as the default Android keyboard, thus suffering from the same problem in OpenSesame.

At the moment I don't have any clue about how this issue can be properly resolved. Perhaps you could browse the Android market for other keyboards (there are many), and report back here if you find one that works? If we know of one that works, then we at least have a temporary workaround.

Knante · June 2015

Hi Sebastiaan,

I've tried out a few and it seems that both the GO Keyboard and the Smart Keyboard Trial from lexicog LLC work. I would recommend the latter as it covers less screen area.

How is it going with the portrait oriented version of the app?

sebastiaan · July 2015

I've tried out a few and it seems that both the GO Keyboard and the Smart Keyboard Trial from lexicog LLC work. I would recommend the latter as it covers less screen area.

Thanks! I've updated the documentation.

How is it going with the portrait oriented version of the app?

There are no plans, because I had the impression that there was no real demand. It would be easy enough to do though. I filed an issue on this so that I don't forget (342).

Cheers,
Sebastiaan

Aysha_B · September 2015

Woah... I'm a student currently and in my first year of Post Graduation and this is the first time that I have come across Opensesame in my curriculum which led me here. I'm really very uninformed about the whole software and language thingies... But I really hope to benefit from this website and all of you people who know soooo Much! Might be posting silly questions about OpenSesame as this would be my first experiment building so please bear with me...

Lots of Love and hope...
Aysha B

panos_uol · September 2015

Hi all!!

I am using the android version of open-sesame to run an experiment in a Samsung Galaxy Ace GT-S5830i, Android version 2.3.6. Participants have to do the experiment multiple times during a week. My problem is that many times the experiment crashes. The crashing seems to happen in a totally random manner. It might happen at any time and at any point of the experiment. So I have no indicator of what might be the cause. The debug file does not give me any specific information (or I am just unable to spot the correct information) and previous posts in this forum do not seem to describe a similar problem.

Solutions implemented but not fixed the problem completely so far:

Using a newer version of Android.
Erasing staff from phone's memory to create more space.

Any other ideas?? I know this sounds a bit generic, but any suggestions would be valuable.

sebastiaan · September 2015

Hi,

I do see a crash in my Google Play developer account. It came in on Aug 18, and is identified as coming from a Droid X device, running OpenSesame 2.9.7, and Android 2.3.3 - 2.3.7. Could that be you?

From what I can tell, this is a hard crash that occurs somewhere deep down in Android. I don't see any way to address it; it's not a nice Python issue that arises in OpenSesame. I've never seen this before. In fact, this is only the second time that a crash of this type is reported in my developer account.

What exactly happens when this crash occurs? Does OpenSesame just close without warning or error message? Or do you get an error message, and, if so, which one?

Cheers,
Sebastiaan

panos_uol · September 2015

Hi Sebastiaan,

many thanks for the reply. No that wasn't me. I am using Samsung Ace, Android 2.3.6. The open sesame version I use it's not the same every time, as I wipe out everything after every participant and install it again.

Yes it just closes without any message. And the debug file doesn't give me any specific information. When I tried to use it in a newer phone, with a more recent android version and higher memory and processing capacity, it was much better. Not perfect, but considerably better. My Samsung ace has a internal memory of 158MB and a processor of 832MHz. Might these be to low to support an open sesame experiment?

Another idea proposed by a member of this forum was to make sure that log files are before any audio files in the experimental sequence. Unfortunately that didn't help either.

sebastiaan · October 2015

I'm afraid I'm in the dark then. Your device's specs are somewhat low, but it's difficult to say whether this explains the crashes. You could post the experiment here so I can take a look at it?

panos_uol · October 2015

If you could do that it would be of great help, many thanks!! Do you want me to just post a picture of the overview structure or do you prefer to send you the file so you can try to run it yourself?

amazinger · October 2015

Hi,
I would liket to use the forms to add button for the android program. But it seems the forms are not compatible with the android runtime. When I add even a form_text_display plug-in in a program, it would crash. However, the widgets function in inline could not help either. The sketchpad showing a pseudo button following a touch_response works, but I would rather use a button in the program. Is there any way to use the forms in android enviroment? Or is there any way to add a touch button? Any suggestion would be grateful.

sebastiaan · October 2015

@amazinger Forms work in the Android runtime as well, so there's probably some other problem. You can find debug output in /sdcard/opensesame-debug.txt, which may help you trace down the issue.

See also:

http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/getting-opensesame/android/#debugging

amazinger · October 2015

Hi Sebastiaan. Thank you for your reply. Yes the form did work on android when I just used form plug-in for a test. The problem may come from something else, but I couldn't find the problem from the debug file. Here's the content of the opensesame-debug.txt:

/sdcard/opensesame-autorun.yml
/mnt/sdcard/opensesame-autorun.yml
Launching resources/android/menu.opensesame
openexp.sampler._legacy.init_sound(): sampling freq = 48000, buffer size = 1024
experiment.init_log(): using 'resources/android/defaultlog.csv' as logfile (utf-8)
experiment.run(): experiment started at Fri Oct 23 20:41:06 2015
failed to open /sdcard/opensesame-settings.txt for reading
experiment_folder = /sdcard/
logfile_folder = /sdcard/
opened /sdcard/opensesame-settings.txt for writing
experiment.run(): experiment finished at Fri Oct 23 20:41:10 2015
Launching /sdcard/image_fudi_android_jian.opensesame.tar.gz
openexp.sampler._legacy.init_sound(): sampling freq = 48000, buffer size = 1024
experiment.init_log(): using '/sdcard/subject-0.csv' as logfile (utf-8)
experiment.run(): experiment started at Fri Oct 23 20:41:11 2015

Could you tell me what the problem is?

Pad · April 2016

Hi,
I'd like to buy a tablet (actually my research lab will buy it) for experimental tasks with opensesame, do you have any advice on what tablet should i go for ? I don't have a precise budget yet but i'm pretty sure i will be encouraged to aim as low as i can.

Pad

sebastiaan · April 2016

@amazinger If you still have this problem, could you upload the experiment somewhere so that I can take a look? It seems that the crash is not registered in the debug file for some reason.

@Pad I personally bought three 7" Samsung Galabxy Tab 3's for an experiment. Those were cheap (around €100) and work pretty well. It's a while back though. And I have a Nexus 9, which is sweet, but also much more expensive.

Pad · September 2016

Hi,
I developed an experiment with the droid backend which runs well on my laptop, but doesn't work on my tablet. The debugging file indicates : ImportError : No module named numpy

Is there a way to manually install this python module ?

sebastiaan · September 2016

Hi Pad,

I'm afraid not. numpy is simply not available on Android. You can find a list of all available modules here:

http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/3.1/manual/android/#available-python-modules

What do you need numpy for? Perhaps there's a simple way to convert your script so that it uses only the Python standard library.

Cheers,
Sebastiaan

Pad · September 2016

Ok...

I have this piece of code :

import numpy as np
import scipy.interpolate
def interpolate_points(x,y):


    if (len(x)<3 or len(y)<3 or len(x)!=len(y)):
        raise Exception('Bad length x or y in interpolate()')

    dist = np.sqrt((x[:-1] - x[1:])**2 + (y[:-1] - y[1:])**2)
    dist_along = np.concatenate(([0], dist.cumsum()))

    # build a spline representation of the contour
    spline, u = scipy.interpolate.splprep([x, y], u=dist_along, s=0, k=2)

    # resample it at smaller distance intervals
    interp_d = np.linspace(dist_along[0], dist_along[-1], 10)
    new_x, new_y = scipy.interpolate.splev(interp_d, spline)

    for i in range(len(new_x)):
            new_x[i] = int(round(new_x[i]))
            new_y[i] = int(round(new_y[i]))

    return zip(new_x, new_y)

Inspired from this thread (see last comment by yurez).

To understand what i'm working on, see this post

I'm pretty sure i can find a way to replace numpy handy functions, but it will be tougher for scipy functions so i will probably give up trying to interpolate.

EoinTravers · September 2016

It seems you have a few options:

Abandon interpolation
Reimplement the scipy functions in pure python (difficult, but not impossible)
See if someone else has already done this elsewhere.
Consider using JavaScript, instead of OpenSesame, to program your experiment. This would mean implementing your whole paradigm using HTML5/JavaScript and running it using the android browser, or packaging it as an app using PhoneGap. If you do this, you could use d3.js for the spline interpolation (example)

bilancino · November 2016

Hello all,
I've a Nexus 9 with Android 7; OpenSesame after the installation gives me the following error:
"Could not extract private data" and then the program crash.
Do you have any suggestion?
Thanks,
Paolo

sebastiaan · November 2016

I've a Nexus 9 with Android 7; OpenSesame after the installation gives me the following error: "Could not extract private data" and then the program crash.

Not yet, no. I actually have a Nexus 9 myself, but I don't have it with me at the moment. When I have it again, I'll see if I can reproduce the problem. In the meanwhile, do you have other Android 7 devices that you can test, to see if the same happens there?

bilancino · November 2016

No, I have only this device.

bilancino · November 2016

Hello, Sebastiaan, I restored my Nexus 9 to 6.0.1 and now OpenSesame is working.

sebastiaan · November 2016

I have my own Nexus 9 again, and for me everything works fine after updating to Android 7 (including all the monthly minor updates). So fortunately it doesn't seem to be a general problem with Android 7.

Did you perhaps run out of storage space after the update? That seems consistent with the error message. (Although it could have been anything, really.)

soraltan · December 2016

Hi Sebastiaan,

thanks for OpneSesame! I only encountered it yesterday and it is very comprehensive and handy. The Android player works fine on my Samsung Galaxy SIII.

However, for kind some experiments it might be desirable to make starting an experiment and obtaining the results using the Android player easier. Let me paint a picture how it could eventually work and let me know what you think about it. Is it possible? Is it feasible or even desirable?

In my personal dream a person would walk past a notice advertising my experiment, would stop, get his mobile out, scan a QR-Code, the app would be started passing it a URL encoded in the QR-Code, the app would wget the experiment file from there and start it.

After finishing the experiment the app would ask the participant for consent to send us the results and do so (maybe by generating and sending a mail, or something).

I'm well aware of the scientific problems with uncontrolled circumstances that might arise. This would not be feasible for most psychological experiments. But for some these circumstances might be acceptable.

Best Soraltan

bilancino · December 2016

My nexus was "empty", I installed only updates and Open Sesame.
For now we continue to use the Android version 6.
Thanks for your test, Sebastian.

TAO Ran · December 2016

Hi Sebastiaan,

Thanks for OpenSesame. I am currently learning to program experiments with it.

I have a clean Nexus 9 (only google apps and OpenSesame) updated to android 7.1.1 and had the same crashing problem ("Could not extract private data") as @bilancino reported. I am trying to figure out something. If not, I will restore it to 6.0.1.

Best,
Ran

TAO Ran · December 2016

@soraltan I like your idea. Actually, Sebastiaan has made something similar to what you are thinking. In google play, there is an app written by Sebastiaan named "Play 4 Science 1". Participants (like me) can install the app and do the experiment. Check it out at: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.cogsci.play4science1

It would be very nice if @sebastiaan could write a tutorial on how to make this kind of app, or there is a tutorial but I failed to notice.

Best,
Ran

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