[v2004] [solved] MediaLab skipping items when using secret keys

We are having problems insuring that participants are seeing every item within a questionnaire. For example, participants will only see items/screens 1-6 in a questionnaire that has 12 items. After item #6, the program jumps to the next questionnaire (without alerting participants or experimenters that they have missed something). We can't see anything within the experiment editor that would indicate why this is happening. It also seems to happen randomly (i.e. always within the same questionnaire, but not always within the same condition or experiment). Help?

That sounds like a problem I've had before. Although the cause could be different.

Go to item details for each item in the questionnaire that is 'randomly' skipping and make sure all the skip to boxes are cleared.

Chances are some responses for some items are sequenced to skip to a certain point; probably the next questionnaire.

Thanks for your reply! Unfortunately this isn't the issue. The strangest thing about this is that this questionnaire runs correctly within several conditions of my experiment (and on other computers in the lab that have copies of this questionnaire), but does this random skipping of half the items under other conditions (when each condition within the experiment is pulling the exact same questionnaire file). I can't figure out what's going on.

Here's the latest:

I checked for the missing items within the questionnaire today by running through several conditions within the experiment. The last half of the items within the questionnaire are still being skipped, however this error is not happening in the same conditions that it was when I posted previously. So, again, the error seems to be occuring randomly. When I select the questionnaire and run it on its own (as opposed to running it within the larger experiment), I don't see the problem occur (although the file loses its formatting that way, i.e. no quickstyles).

We are currently running MediaLab version 2006.2.39 on all lab machines using Windows XP.

Thanks for whatever ideas you can summon.

Thanks Brook--can you reinstall v2006.2.40 on one of the machines giving you the trouble?

It might also be helpful to see if you can replicate the problem while one-by-one eliminating the other ques from the exp file on the trouble machine. i.e., to see what else is necessary in there aside from the target que in order to make the error occur.

Some tentative good news...

I reinstalled the software on one of the two machines causing problems. I ran through several conditions without the skipping error, but eventually came across it again. However, when I ran through the questionnaire as an actual participant would, instead of using Ctrl + right arrow to proceed through the items without responding to every item, the skipping error did not occur. Specifically, the screen/item immediately previous to the items that were being skipped is a timed free-response (essay). When I allowed the screen to time out on its own rather than bypassing the timed function, the remaining items on the questionnaire were not skipped. Hopefully, I've discovered the source of the problem (although I did try this prior to the reinstall without success)!

I have yet to do the reinstall on the other machine, but will let you know if that fixes the other bugs we've discussed. Thank you!

Thanks for the update Brook, glad to hear all is ok again. Let me know if anything unusual happens again that can't be explained by skipping over stuff with the secret keys. I'm going to close this thread now since it goes back to v2006. Thanks again!