Controller Name Column in Results Missing Data

[mrhelfrich]

Hello,

I’ve been encountering an odd issue with the newer PCIbex system (farm.pcibex) but I am not sure if it was always a problem, I have encountered it with at least three different PennController.js versions (Version 2.0, 2.0 alpha, and 1.9 all have the problem) but I cannot say for certain if an even older version also had the problem. In short, when results are saved, some columns are automatically created/logged (presumably by PennController.js), but there is an issue with what appears for me as Column 3/C, given the header “Controller name” (or “3. Controller name.” in the raw results .csv file). When I preview the results within the PCIbex system (where you can write and test the code) it previews properly, showing that the data in this column just constantly reads “PennController” for each row with the column header is listed as “Controller”. When I download these results however, the data in the third column (that should just be the string “PennController” over and over) is instead populated with the data for the 4th column (everything shifts left one column on each row), so the 3rd column will show the data for the column “Order number of item” (displayed as just “Item” in the preview).

I noticed this a while ago (May/Juneish 2021) and just assumed it was a bug that would get fixed so when I had results I would manually shift the data over one column and insert “PennController” into the correct cells since I didn’t bother updating my active experiments with the newest PennController.js file. However I took the time to test it all today and got the same issue with the default controller that is created when a new project is set-up (Version 2.0 July 26, 2021). I then assumed that something in my code must be the cause then but when I created a new project based on the available templates (Start a new project>Masked Priming) and just ran a quick test to create results, the same thing happened.

I apologize if this has been explained before but I couldn’t find anything regarding it when I searched the forums for “controller” and “controller name”. I assume this would have been found by now so I am starting to think something about downloading the results locally is causing the error. I tried opening the downloaded .csv file directly in Notepad (my version of Excel sometimes tries to ‘help’ by formatting .csv files further when it opens them) but even opened as a .txt file the 3rd column of data is still missing. I’ve even tried using different browsers(Chrome and Edge) and different PCs (all Windows 10 though) and it still happens. I’ve noticed this problem doesn’t occur with the older PCIbex that is going to shutdown next year (expt.pcibex), however there isn’t a download results option for that version (that I am aware of, I have been opening the results in and then copy/pasting them into a .txt file manually).

If needed I can post pictures but for me just using a pre-constructed project causes the problem so I don’t think it is necessary for now.

Thanks for the help and for such a great platform,
Max

[Jeremy]

Hi Max,

Thank you for reporting this bug. It has independently been brought to my attention recently, it’s a bug that was introduced with the new results-generation algorithm. It is independent from PennController, which explains why you observed it with all versions you tried. Same about the browsers: the problem lies with the farm’s code

I am reluctant to update the farm’s code just for this, as this sort of operations always come with a risk of extended downtime. In the meantime, assuming you don’t need the information in the Controller column, you can easily drop that column name in R: names(results) <- names(results)[c(1,2,seq(4,length(names(results))))]—or you can simply read the results file with no column names first, and then manually name the columns yourself

Re. saving the results file on the old farm: you can click the eye icon to open the results in a new tab and then use your browser’s menu’s File>Save option, it’s faster and safer than copying and pasting the text in a new file

Jeremy

[mrhelfrich]

Ok, glad to know it the results thing isn’t just me. I understand not wanting to bring everything down just to fix this so that makes sense. I’ll update my R script to account for it like you mentioned thanks.

As for the saving the page as a text file, I used to do that but somehow my main browser (Chrome) has decided to let me save as a text file and I get the pop-up bar along the bottom showing it was saved to my downloads folder but when I try to click either the pop-up or open the downloads folder it is no longer there (the popup says “Removed”). I know for certain this is an issue with Chrome as it doesn’t automatically get deleted when I use a different browser. I’d be curious to see if other Chrome users have the same problem as it occurs even if I am not logged in to Google (or using a guest account).

Thanks for the quick reply,
Max

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