Error: "credit reserved for this session has been released" — 100% aborted sessions in Running mode

[satoya_sejima]

OS (e.g. Win10):
Various (participant devices) — issue occurs across sessions in Running mode, not tied to a specific OS

PsychoPy version (e.g. 2024.2.4 Py 3.8):
2025.2.4

Standard Standalone Installation? (y/n) If not then what?:
n — online only via Pavlovia (PsychoJS)

URL of experiment:
Currently in active data collection (Running mode), so I’d rather not post the live URL publicly. Happy to share a test link via DM if that would help debug.

Do you want it to also run locally? (y/n)
n

What are you trying to achieve?:
Running an online cross-cultural event segmentation study (yamhiroki/es-shaping-online) via Pavlovia, Running mode, CREDIT-based.

What did you try to make it work?:

• Confirmed credits are not exhausted: Available 300, Reserved 0, Consumed 4 (out of Assigned 246)
• Confirmed “Save incomplete results” is enabled
• Confirmed browser/device compatibility settings are all enabled (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Other / Desktop, Tablet, Mobile)
• Checked the Sessions panel on the dashboard (see error details below)

Link to the most relevant existing thread you have found:
None found yet — will update if I find one.

What specifically went wrong when you tried that?:
Include pasted full error message if possible. “That didn’t work” is not enough information.

Almost all participant sessions in Running mode are failing with the following error at the end of the experiment:

"Unfortunately we encountered the following error:

• when terminating the experiment
• when uploading participant’s results for experiment: yamhiroki/es-shaping-online
• either the credit reserved for this session has been released or no credit was previously reserved; results cannot be saved."

Dashboard details:

• Running: submitted 0 (0.0%), aborted 35 (100.0%), last session 2026-07-01
• Piloting: submitted 6 (25.0%), aborted 18 (75.0%), last session 2026-06-26

Since credits are clearly available (Reserved: 0, plenty Available) and this happens consistently across many different participants, this doesn’t look like simple credit exhaustion. Does anyone know what might cause this, and how I could go about debugging it further? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Happy to share more details (repo structure, quit routine code, or a test link via DM) if useful.

[wakecarter]

What happens at the end of the experiment – you mention quit routine code and saving incomplete results.

Wakefield's Daily Tips

Exit cleanly Locally you might want your participant to end on a thank you screen rather than being sent back to the PsychoPy Builder. Unfortunately, this desire has encouraged a bad habit of leaving the final message on screen and then pressing the escape button to exit. While data is saved locally after escape has been pressed, until recently microphone recordings were not. My recommendation would be to have the final screen end on a key press that you have not told the participant, e.g. ‘q’. …

Wakefield's Daily Tips

Saving incomplete results When I create a new study on Pavlovia, one of the first things I do is turn off “save incomplete results”. [image] [image] The reason I do this is to avoid having lots of data files getting created while I build and test the experiment. This is especially important if you use credits rather than a licence, since each data file will cost a credit. Even when turned on, saving incomplete results can be a bit hit and miss. The data is always saved if you press escape …