# Data output suddenly stopped being saved as csv!

**URL:** <https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772>\
**Category:** Online experiments\
**Created:** [November 5, 2022, 11:57pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772 "2022-11-05T23:57:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 17\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ymurzello](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/ymurzello/32/34379_2.png) [@ymurzello](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/ymurzello)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2022, 11:57pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/1 "2022-11-05T23:57:58Z")

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URL of experiment: [task 1 [PsychoPy]](https://run.pavlovia.org/ym25/task-1/)

Description of the problem: My data has been getting saved as a csv and .gz but it suddenly stopped saving as csv even though I have not made any changes to the PsychoPy experiment or Pavlovia. My participants are recruited from Prolific and then do a Qualtrics questionnaire, are redirected to the Pavlovia study, redirected to another Qualtrics for feedback and back to Prolific. I can see that their ProlificID was carried through until they are back on Prolific.

I collected 77 responses without changing anything so I do not understand why Pavlovia has suddenly stopped saving the csv files. I am now at a loss for having to pay participants for data I do not have! Could someone please tell me if there is a way to get the csv files?

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**Author:** ![wakecarter](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/wakecarter/32/5753_2.png) [@wakecarter](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/wakecarter)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2022, 8:15am UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/2 "2022-11-06T08:15:09Z")

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Please could you confirm that your experiment page still says CSV not Database on Pavlovia?

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**Author:** ![ymurzello](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/ymurzello/32/34379_2.png) [@ymurzello](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/ymurzello)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2022, 1:59pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/3 "2022-11-06T13:59:24Z")

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Yes, it still shows CSV.

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/psychopy/original/3X/9/a/9abcf7494d2cc7b60ffa4404a7b82173e3c1ca4f.png)  
 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/psychopy/original/3X/6/d/6dc4292d17909d22bb44b3927ad8640063104374.png)  
The study was not changed on PsychoPy or Pavlovia. It just suddenly stopped saving the CSVs. I can see the .gz files for the participants that don’t have the CSVs so how do I get access to their CSVs?

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**Author:** ![wakecarter](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/wakecarter/32/5753_2.png) [@wakecarter](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/wakecarter)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2022, 2:12pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/4 "2022-11-06T14:12:05Z")

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At the moment your study has run out of credits. How many of the 87 completed participants do you have CSV files for?

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**Author:** ![ymurzello](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/ymurzello/32/34379_2.png) [@ymurzello](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/ymurzello)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2022, 2:35pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/5 "2022-11-06T14:35:44Z")

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Yes, I reassigned the credits to another identical study that is setup exactly the same way to see if the issue is with that study too, but it’s not. It’s correctly saving the data as CSV as this one did.  
It saved the CSV files for the first 77 participants.

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**Author:** ![wakecarter](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/wakecarter/32/5753_2.png) [@wakecarter](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/wakecarter)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2022, 4:44pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/6 "2022-11-06T16:44:32Z")

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I note that you are saving incomplete data. It’s possible that a participant who starts but doesn’t do any trials might generate a log file but not a CSV.

Please could you send me a log file for a participant where you have a CSV and one where you don’t?

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**Author:** ![ymurzello](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/ymurzello/32/34379_2.png) [@ymurzello](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/ymurzello)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2022, 4:58pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/7 "2022-11-06T16:58:39Z")

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I turned that on after I noticed all the missing CSVs cause I read that if I had that on, I might have had some results saved in case they prematurely closed the experiment without moving onto the feedback letter. But I can see that they were redirected to the feedback letter from Pavlovia.  
Here’s the two samples:  
[5a6d67dbe70ca900017adb9c\_task\_1\_2022-11-04\_21h30.22.170.csv](https://discourse.psychopy.org/uploads/short-url/uiyJP0g8I2iIoLLkMygAfZjzqUN.csv) (2.6 KB)  
[data.zip](https://discourse.psychopy.org/uploads/short-url/oNMLjiYNwKCWJ59MZJJd2yVPnew.zip) (11.9 KB)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ymurzello](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/ymurzello/32/34379_2.png) [@ymurzello](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/ymurzello)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 12:35am UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/8 "2022-11-07T00:35:43Z")

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UPDATE: I decided to “waste” a credit and try it again just now since I really need to finish my data collection ASAP, and it saved the CSV file this time. Please note that I have not changed any settings.  
So it looks like this was a bug that caused the CSV files to not be saved for my last 10 participants?

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**Author:** ![wakecarter](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/wakecarter/32/5753_2.png) [@wakecarter](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/wakecarter)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 11:40am UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/9 "2022-11-07T11:40:50Z")

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I can’t see anything particularly different about the log file where you didn’t get a csv file. I used [Extract TAR.GZ File Online (No limits!) - ezyZip](https://www.ezyzip.com/unzip-tar-gz-file-online.html#) to open then. You might be able to recover the lost data from them.

[log files.zip](https://discourse.psychopy.org/uploads/short-url/h9mE1pEqPc3oj1brswCtHN6qU0I.zip) (11.8 KB)

Please could you add me (Wake) as a developer to your experiment so I can take a closer look?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ymurzello](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/ymurzello/32/34379_2.png) [@ymurzello](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/ymurzello)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 12:24pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/10 "2022-11-07T12:24:07Z")

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The contents of the extracted files look pretty different from the CSVs. How do I read them into the CSV format?

I’ve added you as a Developer.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wakecarter](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/wakecarter/32/5753_2.png) [@wakecarter](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/wakecarter)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 12:35pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/11 "2022-11-07T12:35:12Z")

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It looks like you (or someone with access to your account) switched the saving to database. I’ll send you a PM with an Excel file containing data from 8 participants who I think are the ones you are missing.

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**Author:** ![H13](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecc23a/32.png) [@H13](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/H13)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2024, 10:51am UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/12 "2024-10-16T10:51:46Z")

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Hello,

I’m facing a similar problem, but i am using an offline experiment. The “save CSV file” is still checked, but only parts of the experiment are saved in the CSV.

Thanks in advance for any kind of help!  
Johanna

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wakecarter](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/wakecarter/32/5753_2.png) [@wakecarter](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/wakecarter)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2024, 10:59am UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/13 "2024-10-16T10:59:41Z")

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> [@H13](#):
>
> but only parts of the experiment are saved in the CSV.

If you are getting a CSV file for every participant then check you have “is trials” ticked for all of your trials loops. Otherwise, all the data from that loop will appear in the same row (which could mean that trials overwrite each other).

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**Author:** ![valsecchimat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e19adc/32.png) [@valsecchimat](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/valsecchimat)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:13pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/14 "2026-09-09T12:13:56Z")

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Dear Wakecarter,

I think I encountered a similar problem, I have been running my experiment

> **[Pavlovia](https://pavlovia.org/valsecchimat/Tennis1)**
>
> The place for the wide community of researchers in the behavioural sciences to run, share, and explore experiments online

without problems until last week, but now all of the new files I collected only have the .log.gz file but no CSV. the only thing I did last week was to increase the credit (there are now 50 credits assigned to the experiment). The setting is still to save data as csv.

I tried synching through psychopy but also in the synch data folder there are only .log.gz files since last week.

Do you have an idea what could have gone wrong and would it be possible to rescue the files?

Thank you in advance,

Matteo

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wakecarter](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/wakecarter/32/5753_2.png) [@wakecarter](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/wakecarter)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:20pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/15 "2026-09-09T12:20:19Z")

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Hi Matteo,

Please try downloading the data from the experiment page on Pavlovia, to see whether there are any additional data files or a db folder there.

Have you made any edits to the data file name in experiment settings? It should be:

```auto
u'data/%s_%s_%s' % (expInfo['participant'], expName, expInfo['date'])

```

Is **Save csv file (trial-by-trial)** ticked?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![valsecchimat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e19adc/32.png) [@valsecchimat](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/valsecchimat)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:42pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/16 "2026-09-09T12:42:29Z")

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Hi,

I did download the data from the pavlovia page in the first place, the files are the same as fare as I can tell.

here’s the screenshot of the settings.

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/psychopy/original/3X/1/3/13f9150849ad334234ea668369a700ff7ddffb1d.png)

I did change the naming of the files because I removed the part where it asks for the experiment and participant numbers, so files are saved with only the date, e.g.

“undefined\_RepeatedOns\_2026-07-22\_21h32.43.768.csv”

Until last week that worked OK and for each datafile there was a .csv file and the corresponding .gz, since last week however I only see .gz.

By the way, when I download the data from pavlovia, the data folder also contains a .db folder which contains a 2 MB .csv file called “Database\_AllParticipants\_Tennis1\_522354\_2026-09-09\_11h30.23\_ed4500a3-b713-4c2b-aaab-d51354305740.csv”

Would it be possible to maybe extract the missing data from there or from the .gz files?

Thanks a lot,

Matteo

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wakecarter](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.psychopy.org/wakecarter/32/5753_2.png) [@wakecarter](https://discourse.psychopy.org/u/wakecarter)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:52pm UTC](https://discourse.psychopy.org/t/data-output-suddenly-stopped-being-saved-as-csv/31772/17 "2026-09-09T12:52:06Z")

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> [@valsecchimat](#):
>
> By the way, when I download the data from pavlovia, the data folder also contains a .db folder which contains a 2 MB .csv file called “Database\_AllParticipants\_Tennis1\_522354\_2026-09-09\_11h30.23\_ed4500a3-b713-4c2b-aaab-d51354305740.csv”

This is what you get if the experiment is set to database. Your missing data should be in there.