Protocols not running on new versions of MWorks

Support
1

In the previous experiments that I was doing I’ve created my protocols using MWorks 0.4.4. It was for the rats experiment and now I’m trying to replicate this study in humans. However, I have a problem when I’m trying to run my protocols using the newer version of MWorks (they won’t even start). Most of the time I get a report that some attribute is missing (like “data_interval”) or that there is a problem with a variable/action id. By comparing the protocols as XML files I’ve noticed that “_id” format changed in the never versions and I assume that’s the source of the problems, but I can’t be sure so I’m asking you. Any advice that can help me is more than welcome. I hope I won’t have to rewrite the protocols from scratch.

Best
Vladimir

2

Hi Vladimir,

My apologies for not responding sooner. I was out of the office on vacation all of last week.

The basic problem you’re having is described in this article. In short, MWorks is now much stricter about validating component parameters. As for your specific examples:

Most of the time I get a report that some attribute is missing (like “data_interval”)

If required attributes are missing, then you’ll need to add them to your experiment. There’s no avoiding this one.

or that there is a problem with a variable/action id

I’m not sure about the source of this one. Can you send me an example error message?

I’ve noticed that “_id” format changed in the never versions and I assume that’s the source of the problems

The _id attribute is something that MWEditor uses internally and used to write (erroneously) to the output XML. It is ignored by the experiment parser, so it shouldn’t be causing any of your problems.

I hope I won’t have to rewrite the protocols from scratch.

Your experiments definitely will need some updates, but it shouldn’t be necessary to rewrite them entirely. I’m happy to help you through the update process.

Cheers,
Chris Stawarz

3

Sorry for the delay, I was away as well.
Because of the time constraints we decided to revert one Mac mini to the old version so we don’t loose the time.
There is one more question that I would like to ask.
In order to randomly interleave the stimuli in my new protocol I’m initiating the variable in the replicator, and then I use “disc_rand” to select among them. But for some reason this command doesn’t work. I’m always getting only the first image from the stack. Can you help me with this one?
Thank you in advance.

Vladimir