Random forms failed to submit to server after saving and finalizing

[dsm]

Dear community,

We are currently out in the field collecting data. We just heard that one of our enumerators failed to submit to the server 6 out of 24 finalised forms, while there was no problem with submitting other forms. We have no idea why these 6 failed - on random days - and the other forms were submitted to the server successfully, sometimes even on the same day. We checked with the team but other enumerators do not face this issue.
We did the following to check what;s wrong:

• today we filled a new form called “test” and were able to successfully submit this finalized form to the server, using the same device, and the same survey form. We were also able to submit to the server two other forms that were filled out yesterday, so this upload issues seems very random?
• date/time of the phone is up to date
• we only have KoboCollect app on the phones and deleted ODK from the phone
• phone is equipped with the most recent forms
• we manually downloaded the data by connecting the phone to the computer. We copied the ZIP folder ‘instances’ to the computer and tried to upload manually via the instructions found here (bulk). However, I received the following 6 error messages for the 6 forms (that were not duplicates and failed to submit): “=>reference to invalid characternumber: line x, column xxxx”.

The only problem I can think of is that the enumerator used a weird symbol, emoticon, or character that is not supported. However, we cannot go back to the forms to check and edit, since they have been saved.

The 6 forms are still stuck in " send finalized form (6)".

I would very much appreciate your help so we can hopefully solve this issue and do not lose the data!

Thank you in advance

[Kal_Lam]

@dsm

we manually downloaded the data by connecting the phone to the computer. We copied the ZIP folder ‘instances’ to the computer and tried to upload manually via the instructions found here (bulk). However, I received the following 6 error messages for the 6 forms (that were not duplicates and failed to submit): “=>reference to invalid characternumber: line x, column xxxx”.

Maybe this is one point that is affecting as you downloaded your forms manually.

@dsm

The only problem I can think of is that the enumerator used a weird symbol, emoticon, or character that is not supported. However, we cannot go back to the forms to check and edit, since they have been saved.

Regarding this issue, you should be able to edit your filled-up forms from the app.

Maybe you will also need to check if any of the forms (some mandatory questions) are empty. When a mandatory questions are empty, you are unable to submit a filled up form to the server.

[dsm]

Thank you! We were not able to access the saved forms to edit these. There were no forms in the phone, the 6 forms were only at “send finalised forms (6)”. Once you have saved the forms, how can you go back and edit ?

The solution: We downloaded the files from the phone as to be able to find out what went wrong. In word notepad I was able to look up the lines and columns and found out it was indeed emojis that caused errors . I deleted them from these scripts and was then able to upload to the server (manually). Quite happy we didn’t lose the data here and lesson learnt (no emojis!)

[Kal_Lam]

@dsm,