Survey hangs on "sending data" screen

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07-18-2018 09:35 AM
MaritzaMallek1
New Contributor II

Hi, I have a major issue with Survey123 that I believe appeared after the version 3 update. Essentially what happens is that, seemingly at random, users cannot submit surveys taken. This survey was working fine last month and the problem does not affect all users. It seems like something has to trigger a fault and then that person cannot submit any surveys. They cannot even copy data from a previously successfully submitted survey and resend. 


I have not been able to determine a specific pattern. I thought it might be tied to number of attachments or total size, but one device was able to submit a complex answered survey without issues. 

What happens most frequently is that one clicks send, and then you get the sending screen. It processes through various steps, including uploading the attachments, and then hangs at the end with the green circle and "sending data."

Once a mobile device stops being able to send data, no other surveys from that person seem to be able to go through until the database is re-initialized. "Fix database" in settings does not resolve the problem. Once the inability to submit surveys appears, the user cannot even go back and edit and resubmit their own surveys.

I have seen the main issue related to 3.0 that comes up is that the applyEditswithGlobalIDs is not true, but it is for us an always has been as we have a repeat with attachments.

At one point I got the rollback error on a device, which I resolved by erasing all the original inputs and then re-entering new ones. After that I got hte hanging error.

I have people doing surveys in the field now who are having to scramble and use paper datasheets, so I would really appreciate any advice. I'm pretty stumped! I will attach my survey123 file below. Please let me know if additional info would be helpful. 

10 Replies
BrettHorr
New Contributor III

Hi Maritza,

I was having this same problem with one of my surveys today, but once I republished the survey from Survey123 Collect I was able to submit the surveys that kept failing. All of the surveys that had been stuck in my outbox have are now available on my Survey123 for ArcGIS site.

Good luck,

Brett

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MaritzaMallek1
New Contributor II

I republished the survey, fixed the database, reinitialized the database, deleted and redownloaded the survey - all to no avail on the affected devices. I'm glad it worked for you but it does not resolve the problem for me.

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MaritzaMallek1
New Contributor II

I may have solved this, at least partially. The edit settings for this layer were set to Editors can only edit their own features. When I change this to Editors can edit all features, users who were prevented from submitting previously could now submit.

This seems like a massive bug. How do I report it? It needs to be fixed as soon as possible! This bug has been very expensive to my organization in terms of the amount of time spent trying to understand why users could not send surveys, and in the need to conduct surveys with paper datasheets and then enter data after the fact. There is no logical reason why only allowing editors to edit their own data should preclude people from submitting NEW surveys.

Note: I'm not 100% sure when Survey123 3.x was released, but this has been an issue since late June so it may not be related to the most recent version after all.

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by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Hi Maritza,

Are the users collecting the surveys logged into AGO or accessing the survey as a public user? Do you have attachments enabled and a image or attachment question in your survey?

It is possible the issue with "Editors can only edit their own features" is related to having a public survey with attachments.

Phil.

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MaritzaMallek1
New Contributor II

Attachments are enabled and the hanging issue only occurs on surveys that have an attachment. They are critical to the survey though so while not required, it is not an option to just not collect them.

All users affected are logged into AGOL. All have corporate accounts; one in the same institution as me, the other 2 were in different institutions that had full ESRI licensing. They are all members of a group; the group is the only entity that has access to the feature layer/form. Everyone in the group was given the same permissions, as described in the posts above.

So attachments are part of the issue, but a public survey is not.

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by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Hi Maritza,

Thanks for the additional information, can you confirm that the users are actually signed in when trying to submit surveys with attachments and that the survey is not shared publicly? We only see this error when "Editors can only edit their own features" is selected and using public surveys with attachments. In that case, once the setting is changed to "Editors can edit all features" the submit will be successful.

Phil.

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MaritzaMallek1
New Contributor II

It's not shared publicly. We generally have a policy never to share surveys like this publicly. It is only shared to the group that I made specifically to share the survey and some related layers for use in Collector. I'm confident that the users were signed in because I know other signed in and out, and because I used a colleague's device and know she was signed in. Again, if they aren't signed in, they can't access the survey at all, much less submit it.

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MaritzaMallek1
New Contributor II

The only reason I even fixed it is because I changed the settings from this:

What kind of editing is allowed?

• What features can editors edit?
To this (bold = selected)

What kind of editing is allowed?

• What features can editors edit?
because one group member was concerned about accidental editing. It was then broken for a few weeks, until I remembered I'd made this change. I then tested each combination of these and the surveys only hung when 
Editors can only edit their own features (requires tracking)
was selected.
The entire time this was happening, the group and all of its content were only shared/visible/etc to group members.
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MaritzaMallek1
New Contributor II

Ugh I can't believe you can't edit these posts. To clarify, the original settings were 

Add, update, and delete features

Editors can edit all features

They were changed as described above. Then changed back.

So either I'm a magical unicorn or there's a bug.

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