Awful times for survey glitches and bugs?

[samp28]

Well, even my trusted and well paying OO has been a let down the last few days.

Yesterday I did a SB survey, finished it, it tried redirecting back to the site for crediting. Then error, session ID invalid. Lovely. Another survey had another error yesterday where I wasn't credited.

Today, OO. 1 survey I had nearly finished got stuck. I was about 84% complete and there was no arrow to go to the next page after giving my answers. Waited, and waited, zoomed in and out on browser to see if it was tucked to the side under text... nope.... I tried going back to the study via OO's dashboard.... Survey has been filled.

Then just now, and this one really peed me off. A really tedious survey about tech brands :/. Finished it and got to the thanks for completing the survey screen.... redirect.... error....god damn it.

[schludermann]

I stopped doing OO surveys years ago because they would fail like that and support could careless or even ignore requests.  This happens with many survey panels that use routers. If you want to continue, make sure there are no VPN services running and use a dedicated browser with no pop up blockers or cookie managers. You may also want to use a password manager instead and purge internet files, cache and cookies with each relaunch of the browser..

[Cliche01]

The only thing I'm having issues with at the moment is I can't view or 'set' rewards or reward levels on Point Club. Clicking the link takes me nowhere and I get a 'page not responding' sort of message.  I wrote them about this, and got some reply that didn't even address the issue, simply told me how to go about using the site, so I complained back to them again.  

As for OO, yeah, I went through I period of time I ranted and raved with them over such problems.  Sometimes they would give me some extra points.  After a while it seemed to get better, or maybe I just didn't care anymore.  Haven't noticed anything unusual lately with them, though.  Only think I can suggest is clear your browser and all that crap they usually suggest you do. 

[peach6]

36 minutes ago, Cliche01 said:

The only thing I'm having issues with at the moment is I can't view or 'set' rewards or reward levels on Point Club. Clicking the link takes me nowhere and I get a 'page not responding' sort of message.  I wrote them about this, and got some reply that didn't even address the issue, simply told me how to go about using the site, so I complained back to them again.  

As for OO, yeah, I went through I period of time I ranted and raved with them over such problems.  Sometimes they would give me some extra points.  After a while it seemed to get better, or maybe I just didn't care anymore.  Haven't noticed anything unusual lately with them, though.  Only think I can suggest is clear your browser and all that crap they usually suggest you do. 

If you click on Point Bank it's right above your total points awarded  it should bring you to the page where you can pick your award and check your points etc. I hope that helps

[Cliche01]

Thanks, I'll give that a shot, I keep trying to click on the 'set rewards' circle, and nothing happens.  After my second complaint, got a notice back to try another browser like Chrome, and I was like what the heck, you expect me to load and use a whole other browser just because your site has glitches?   Behind that, I do seem to be racking up points there quicker than people told me would happen.  

[dawn_b_adams]

I feel your pain. This happens to me 2-3 times a day. Like others on here, they are all partner surveys I have the problems with. Sometimes I do what Schludermann suggested and periodically clear my browser cache, cookies, and internet files. I do this 5-6 times a day. 

There are certain sites where the glitches seem to happen more frequently. Ipsos is notorious for this. I am able to complete surveys through them, but sometimes it's one thing after another with the glitches. I'm pretty wary if I'm doing a survey with Ipsos. 

[samp28]

On 7/23/2019 at 7:31 PM, schludermann said:

If you want to continue, make sure there are no VPN services running and use a dedicated browser with no pop up blockers or cookie managers. You may also want to use a password manager instead and purge internet files, cache and cookies with each relaunch of the browser..

First it's not a password issue? 

Then it's a complete myth that clearing the cache and cookies can help. In fact in most cases when it's said, that doesn't even need to happen. Doing so can by an annoyance to the user rather than help (Especially in the case of things like typing in part of the URL for a site and having it show below to click on. With this wiped it means having to access the site again before it shows in the drop down bar). Trust me, I've been building computer systems since I was a child and have in depth knowledge about this stuff.

Clearing cookies is only ever helpful in things such as getting cashback. I.e if someone has visited a retailer previously or via another tracking link. Rather than clear cookies or anything though, someone can just open an incognito tab, visit that retailer through the cashback site, make their purchase and then close the incognito tab.


The issues I had were completely down to bugs with the surveys.

The only where the next button didn't appear. Well, that specific survey would load the next button separate from the main page (4-5 seconds after main page had loaded). Likely it's in a frame and tried connecting to server to load it, yet timed out.

The invalid ID and redirect error were down to the outward scripting of the redirect. 

Which in theory, when you load the survey, it loads your respondent ID (which links to survey site). When redirecting back upon completion, it's just a simple script really.... idk....for example....

Survey start: surveyyoutake(dot)com/Survey_Gaming127/Redirect.php?respondentID=1234567 
Which takes the panellist to they survey

On completion it should send someone to: surveyyoutake(dot)com/Survey_Gaming127/panel/Success_Redirect.php?respondentID=1234567
Which redirects someone back to their panel and credits the full amount.

In some cases, likely in mine but I didn't check, there would have been a bug due to scripting error or a timeout to the server which meant it tried redirecting me back via:
surveyyoutake(dot)com/Survey_Gaming127/panel/Success_Redirect.php?respondentID=0000000

Of course "0000000" isn't a valid respondent ID so it generated the error.


The problem with a lot of surveys is you get one shot. On Swagbucks once you click that survey it vanishes from your survey page so it can't be got back into if there's an error

[schludermann]

using a password manager will partially compensate for purging cookies. Cookies are persistent information placed in the browser and read later. any of the Cookies can be read by any website you visit. If you would like to prove to yourself it could be a cookies issue, you can do it in several ways. Using a cookie manager you can progressively whitelist sites. Meaning you are alerted to when a site wants to place cookies on your computer and you can either approve specific cookies or whitelist a domain. You can also test this by going into the browser settings and dump the cookies from the domains you are experiencing problems. if they are cookie dependent, operation will restore for the website granted or that the old cookies were deleted. Since any cookie can be read by and website, provided the website knows the cookie format, a malformed cookie can stall progression. Some survey panels also have short session periods and time out or have problems tracking sessions and lose your information and you don't get credit. 

 

The use of trackers is very prevalent with survey panels. a couple of years ago I installed EFF security badger and watched the activity. Some survey panels had up to 50 trackers. If I blocked some trackers, a survey would stall similar to what you are describing until i white listed the domain. 

 

If you have browser extensions installed, try turning them off and stepwise reactivate the extensions one at a time.

 

As a general strategy, when you have something as complex and arcane as browser activity, it will not be comprehensible, even to an engineer, too many interacting variables. The most effective strategy  is to find what is involved with the issue and decided what to get rid of. What works best in a situation like this is isolation troubleshooting, it makes the problem smaller and requires less guessing.