Submission failure and multiple records appearing in the database

Question

We had a field exercise today with 10+ people hopping onto Survey123 and walking the streets and submitting.

One of our users came back and said one of his surveys wasn't submitting.

He had clicked on submit a number of times and it had a 400 error.  Now we have 7 duplicate records.

We are using a non-federated service method on AGOL.  Is this a symptom of that?

Has anyone had a similar problem?

Mark Wallace‌ we're getting there on a S123 rollout and I might be coming to see support.

JamesTedrick · Answer

Hi Peter,

Can you provide some more information about the survey design- in particular, does the survey have image questions?

Using a nonfederated service does add one more link in the data transmission chain, so it may make an error slightly more likely.  You can test the connection by bringing the ArcGIS Online item in to a map- look for response time and dropouts.

With 2.4, Survey123 is implementing enhancements to attempt to reduce the likelihood of a duplicate record (either everything submits, o nothing submits), though this is using ArcGIS Online only functionality at this point.  It also is addressing a few common workflow issues that end up creating duplicate records (primarily around images, hence the first question).

MikeOnzay · Answer

I haven't had a submission failure AND duplicate records but I did notice that one of my surveys that was used to collect 522 storm inlet inspection records (over a period of several months) does have duplicates. In 4 records time was the only difference. In 4 other records there was no difference at all.

CD33479D3, 2 second difference.

RD33063D4, 1 second difference

RD32720D4, 1 second difference

RD32702D3, 1 second difference

RD33199D4, no difference

RD32665D3, no difference

RD32653D4, no difference

RD30406D3, no difference