Survey123 restarts on iPad when switching apps or waking from sleep mode

Question

iPad users are reporting that every time the iPad wakes from sleep mode, Survey123 restarts and the survey is reloaded with an option to discard or continue the survey. Sometimes data is lost. See attached video. This also occurs if the user switches between apps. Does anyone have suggestions on how to prevent Survey123 from restarting on an iPad when waking from sleep mode? We do not experience this issue on the Android tablets.

Users are biologists who are conducting a vegetation survey. Thus, they are working on the survey for hours with multiple periods of the iPad sleeping as they are walking. They are worried about accidentally clicking the discard button at some point during the day and losing all data. It would also be nice to have a confirmation appear if the user clicks discard, to help prevent accidental data loss.

Survey123restarting.mp4

Filter Menu with predefined.PNG

abureaux · Answer

As an update, I just checked my iPad. After about an hour, I unlocked the iPad and S123 was still open to my survey as it should be.

I'm sorry this isn't overly helpful.

The only thing that really makes sense to me is this is a hardware/iPad version issue.

Strahanjen · Answer

Thanks for the thoughts. We're experiencing the same issue on 3 different iPads. Two were purchased last spring. I'll check with the users on the specs. One is an older iPad with iOS version 14.7.1. This happens to us about 20 seconds after the screen locks or after switching to another app and then switching back to Survey123. One iPad has an option to set Auto-Lock to never, but the other two only allow us to set a maximum of 5 min before it sleeps.

The survey was published on 3.14.274 version of connect and the version of Survey123 used is 3.14.255.

abureaux · Answer

I think your video may have cut out early?

I am using a 9th gen iPad (software 15.3.1). I started a new survey, collected some data, and tried the following:

* Minimized the S123 app and used another app (around 2 minutes out of S123)
* With S123 open, I hit the power button to sleep the iPad (around 30 seconds)

Neither caused S123 to log me out. I will leave the iPad off for a while and see if that has any effect.

How long until this happens for you? E.g., as soon as the screen locks, or after 10 minutes of inactivity?

I know on Android you can set some apps to Deep Sleep which may cause this behaviour, but I am not sure what controls Apple gives users for this (never had an iPad before recently). Since I didn't find anything on this in my quick search, the first thing I would suggest checking is that iPad is up to date. Next, is the iPad in good condition (for instance, not starved for resources, not overheating, etc.). I cant see how this would cause the behaviour you are describing, but just to be on the safe side, what version of Connect was the survey published on? (3.14 is most recent)