Message boxes cause problems prior to v2006.2.26
Message boxes cause problems prior to v2006.2.26
Occasionally, participants will get 90% of the way through the experiment, and MediaLab will exit after the 2nd to last task. I can't figure it out - especially since it doesn't always happen. When the experiment simply ends, no data are being recorded. I have watched participants for whom the program has exited, as it happens. The task after which it exits is a timed task (3 minutes). The dialogue box comes up to tell them time has elapsed, they press "ok" and the program exits.
So these are scale responses. OK.. so is it ending in the case where a subject is asked to specify their response.. and where they have not yet done so when the questionnaire time has expired? So the prompt is still active after the questionnaire has shut down? I just tried this and got a "subscript out of range error".. If that is what's happening on your end, let me know because that would explain what's happening (I'll fix it regardless). Note to other users, this will be fixed in v2006.2.15.
I've posted here a much simpler version of your study in order to isolate the problem. This experiment has one questionnaire with five anagrams and a 30 second time limit--that's it. Could you see if the problem replicates with this revision? I think what is required is that a pop-up dialogue box (e.g., "please specify") must be open at the moment that the overall questionnaire time limit expires.
Hi again. Thanks so much for your help. I took the simplified versions and plugged them into my experiment. At first, I was having no problems, but through a bit of experimentation, I figured something out that I think may be very important. If I click on "yes" in the anagram task, but do not write down my answer and click "ok" before the time runs out (box pops up telling me time is up), the program exits. So - the program shuts down when TWO pop-up boxes are open: (1) the specify answer pop-up box, and (2) the time limit is up pop-up box. What should I do to change this?
thanks!
OK, check out the replacement file medialab.exe in this zip file. Be sure to read the readme.htm file also (it's also in the zip file). Let's see if this helps.
That code worked perfectly. Thanks so much for your patience with all of
this.
No problem. It seems that if an input box is open when the timer on the questionnaire expires then it causes a crash. I've fixed this for scale items--I'll need to check now to see if it applies to other item types as well.
-Blair
[edited from support email, related case]
We ran 12 people in total so far, but for two of them we did not get any data. What happened was that both of the problematic cases ended with the math session while participants were running out of time. when the time limit was up (or close), a small window popped up on the screen saying "run time error" (at least for one of the two cases) and when the participant clicked "OK" on that small window, it automatically closed Medialab, and none of the data from any one of the three tasks were saved in the "data" folder.
We have just recently found a bug (see above) that may explain this.. it seems to happen when a pop-up message box is active on the screen at the very same time that the time limit for a questionnaire expires. This causes a conflict because MediaLab trys to shut down the questionniare but can't--because a message box from the questionnaire is up on the screen. We have so far fixed the problem when it occurs during fill in the blank and scale responses--if you want to check it out, this new release (2006.2.26) is posted here: www.empirisoft.com/download.aspx
