Coding mode is producing ERROR #3831 in the server logs

Survent is getting a blow error with no number and the only evidence left behind is ERROR #3831 in the server log files.

It might look like this:

!(ERROR #3831) Getfilelist buffer overflow. File list not made. Fatal

mainloop 07:13:24 time now:1407413604

READ:1170707:13:24 W_LOG_MSG 90 ms_blow?(ERROR?#3831

LOG_A 07:13:24 ldev 11707: ms_blow (ERROR #3831) Getfilelist buffer overflow. File list not made. Fatal 3831 20672

ldev 11707: ms_blow (ERROR #3831) Getfilelist buffer overflow. File list not made. Fatal 3831 20672

The cause of this issue is too many suspend files in the suspend directory for the study in question . When a Survent interview starts up that does not have associated phone file (like the way codingmode runs), it tries to make a list of all the suspend files so that if an interview wants to resume, it can show them a list of files to resume.

If the list is large enough (>13,000) files, Survent does not have enough memory to create the list.

There are two workarounds:

1) Reduce the number of suspend files. In most cases, this problem will only arrise on a wave study that has been running for years and the old suspend files from previous waves have not been cleared up. Go in and remove any suspend files that are non-longer associated with the current fon file or just remove the ones older than so many months ago.

2) Increase the amount of core memory you need to run Survent. The default core as of verions 8.61 is 500K, so you likely want to double it to 1meg. Please note, that increasing core can have a negative impact on performance if you run a lot of stations. You want to make sure that the core allotted for each stations times the number of stations does not approach the total available memory on the system.

If you are running terminal mode, this can be done by chaning the command file that invokes survent and add a core option to it. If you are running webCATI, then this has to be done either through a parmfile setting or an environment variable.

To set this via the parmfile, add/edit this command in the parmfile.

websurvent_startup_append: core: 1000000

or it can be set by using the environment variable CFMCHTMLSURVAPPEND

In the cshell you would set this by using the following command:

setenv CFMCHTMLSURVAPPEND “core:1000000”

This needs to be set in the study server start up script and regardless of which approach you take to increase the core memory, the study server must be restarted for this to take effect.