ScreenOn/Off data

Hi there, we have started to test collecting ScreenOn/Off data but unfortunately no data was collected for any of the iPhone-users. When starting the study the app demanded access to GPS-tracking -even though we do not want this data. After first allowing it, all iPhone users have disabled that later on (battery saving and privacy issues). Could that be the reason why no data was recorded?
The study ID is 677.

For the Android-users there is only data until yesterday afternoon and I haven’t been able to download any of the app usage data (download of the data of just one participant has been pending for over 30 minutes).

Hi Fenne,

As you mentioned, Ethica on iOS requires GPS permission even if you don’t intend to collect GPS data. That’s because in order for the Ethica iOS app to collect any background data (in your case, screen state), it needs to remain active in the background. So when you close the app, it should continue to operate and check the screen state change and report it.

In order to do that, the app requires to have GPS permission, so it can remain active in the background. If the user refuses the GPS permission, Ethica will be terminated as soon as you turn off your screen to close the Ethica’s app, and it cannot collect the required data.

Note that if you don’t intend to collect GPS, Ethica will not record GPS data. It will still ask for the GPS permission and uses this permission to work in the background, but does not collect any GPS data.

I understand that this still might be a bit confusing. Incidentally, in our current workshop on health research using Ethica, we did discuss this issue yesterday. The videos of the workshop will be out in the next couple of weeks and we will mark the section that this issue is discussed. That can very well clarify why such permission is required.

Hope this helps,
Mohammad

Thank you, Mohammad! That does help a lot. So once the permission to use GPS is given again the data recording should start working again, right?

That’s correct. When the participant provides the required permissions, the app will function as expected. You can always check what’s happening for each participant using the “Participant History Report”.

Bests,
Mohammad

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My participants have given Ethica the permission to switch on GPS but unfortunately still no data is recorded. I also checked the Participant History Report and there also only Android users show up…

Best,
Fenne

Hi @fenne.grosse.deters

For iPhone users:

  1. Please make sure the app is granted all required permissions. If there are some missing permissions, a relevant notification will be shown in the app.
  2. Make sure the app is not terminated. The app must be running the background in order for the data to be collected (more on that here). Even if the participant provides all required permissions, but then she terminates the app, no data will be collected.
  3. In both #1 and #2 is met, the app will upload the data once every hour or so. You can press “Sync Data” from Ethica app’s Settings and that will immediately upload the data.

Bests,
Mohammad

Hi @m.hashemian,
after a substantial delay (even though we pressed Sync Data before) data showed up for all iPhone users. However, for one user the app started recording data with a delay of severall hours and stopped recording data in the evening again. The app had the permission to use GPS as well as to send notifications and he did not terminate the app. He did not receive a notification to open the app. Today I updated his device via Participation Adherence - he received the notification and clicked on updating. The app started to record data but now it has stopped again.
Do you have any ideas why the app stopps recording and why no notifications are sent?

For a second iPhone-user in the downloaded data no data showed up since yesterday evening (we clicked on “Sync Data” to rule out the possibility that the data was recorded but not sent). Next I also clicked on “update device” via Participation Adherence. After updating, the app now states that he is not participating in any study. However, if he enters the study ID of my study, he gets the notification that he is already participating in the study. He is still listed as a participant and that is app is in operation (Participation Adherence), however no new data has been recorded since the update. Interestingly, after updating, the “missing” data from yesterday evening up to the time when he updated his app suddenly showed up in the downloaded data. Any ideas what is going on there?

Thank you!
Fenne

Unfortunately, now the app doesn’t work properly for any of the four test-participants with iPhones.

One participants keeps getting notifications that the app has stopped working but opening the app did not make the app resume data collection.

I have no idea how to fix this as we followed all of your advice…maybe Screen State simply doesn’t work for iPhone users? Or is the problem that we only try to collect Screen State info and nothing else? Any help/advice/insights would be very much appreciated!

Hi @fenne.grosse.deters

Sorry for the late reply. We checked everything in detail and found an issue causing Participant History Report not to display properly on your Researcher Dashboard.

But when we checked the Participant History Report for all iOS participants in your study, we could not find any problem. Basically, if participants would follow the 3 steps I listed above, the app would work just as expected.

I review each of the iOS participants below:

Participant 13185:

  • Has data from June 26th 2019, 11:08:46.153 to June 27th 2019, 12:37:44.620
  • No data has received from her since then. That means the app is terminated and she has not opened the app since then.

Participant 13209:

  • Has data from June 25th 2019, 14:14:56.042 to June 28th 2019, 14:08:14.662. Which shows the app is working as expected and is not terminated.

Participant 13211:

  • The last data was received on June 21st 2019, 11:34:45. Since then, the user has revoked Notification permission from Ethica.

Participant 13213:

  • Has data from June 26th 2019, 06:09:12.789 to June 28th 2019, 19:14:56.538.

Participant 13319:

  • Has data from June 27th 2019, 15:59:23.810 to June 27th 2019, 16:40:37.105. Like 13185 there has been no data since then, which means the app is not functioning in the background.

All times are in UTC.

Hope this helps,
Mohammad

Dear @m.hashemian,

Thank you for you answer and for reviewing each of the participants.

Unfortunately, the issue causing Participant History Report not to display properly on my Researcher Dashboard remains – I still don’t see any information about iOS participants.

Moreover, even if participants followed the 3 steps the app did not work properly for many participants (3 out of 5).

There is one participant 13,211 who I couldn’t reach so she did not grant the app the permission to use GPS - so the missing data can be expected.

And there is one participant (13,209) where the app worked properly after granting the permission. However, when I downloaded the data on Friday afternoon there were only records until Thursday afternoon (even though he clicked on “synchronize” Friday morning to make sure all the data would be uploaded). Would it be possible to get access to the database directly? I assume that these delays only happen for downloading the data.

With the remaining 3 participants the following issues occurred:

Participant 13185:

Data collection stopped on Thursday, I send an Update device, the participant clicked on the update and since then the app tells him that he is not participating in any study. If he re-enters the study ID he gets the message that he is already participating in this study and can’t register. How can this issue be resolved? (see one of my previous messages)

Participant 13213:

Gave the app the permission for GPS on Tuesday afternoon but the recording only started Wednesday morning. Also there is a gap between 2019-06-26 20:22:08 and 2019-06-27 11:47:20. No data was recorded in this period of time even though the participant used his phone during that time. Not only did he report that but I also see that he completed two online questionnaires (not via Ethica) with his phone during that period.

Participant 13319:

He granted the app all the permissions. However, he was notified several times that the app has stopped working and that he should open the app. He did that (and even completed two surveys again) but the app did not start collecting data until the next day. There are records for 20 minutes and then the app stopped again and started collecting data on Saturday afternoon until Saturday evening.

For two Android participants everything is working perfectly but due to my experiences with the iOS users I asked two more Android users to participate (participant 13,330 and 13,332). They both have Huawei-phones and for both of them the app is not working. They reported that there was an extra notification when opening the app for the first time but after granting the app permission to track usage the notification was gone. Participant 13,332 reported that she got the notification that the app has stopped working and re-opened the app but without success. I looked at your documentation regarding Android phones but wasn’t able to find something to fix this problem.

Best,
Fenne

Hi @fenne.grosse.deters

Unfortunately, the issue causing Participant History Report not to display properly on my Researcher Dashboard remains – I still don’t see any information about iOS participants.

Yes, thanks for pointing this out. We sorted out the problem the same day and since then the Participant History Report is been available for all participants. Unfortunately the Participant History Reports prior to Jul. 1st are not available.

Regarding the individual participants you listed above:

13209: The data is available up until Friday June 28th 2019, 14:08:14. When you access the data through Kibana, that directly connects you to the database. So when no data is shown in Kibana, that means there is no data in the database. Our system immediately puts the data in the database when they are arrived from the app (there is no intermediary buffer in between). So as soon as the participant presses Sync Data or the app does data sync automatically behind the scene, the data is sent to the server and with maximum 5 minutes delay it’s placed in the DB, which then will be visible through Kibana right away.

13185: Thanks for letting me know about this case. Unfortunately we did not receive any report from this participant’s device, so we could not exactly pinpoint what was the issue. I wrote down the note you provided and asked my colleagues to repeat these steps in case we can reproduce the issue and resolve it.

13213: The app was terminated on 25th and then opened again on 26th, when the data collection started again. The reason there was no data collected from 26th until 27th 11 am is also the same. You can read more about this issue here, or you can watch the video from our last workshop discussing this issue here (you may want to check other videos as well).

13319: This issue is explained here. Unfortunately sometimes it happens when the participant opens the app, and closes it, iPhone soon after terminates the app again. In this case the app shows the notification again.

For Huawei devices, we have documented some steps here but that does not cover all types of Huawei devices. Newer Huawei devices require different settings. This website can be helpful on device-specific settings.

Bests,
Mohammad