Professional > Interview scripting > Writing interview scripts > Dealing with errors > Standard error messages
 
Standard error messages
There are standard error messages that the interviewing program displays when a respondent selects or enters an invalid answer to a question. They are as follows:
Name
Default text
CannotCombine
Answer '{ANSWER}' ({CATEGORY}) cannot be combined with other answers.
InvalidText
Answer '{ANSWER}' is not valid.
MissingAnswer
Missing answer(s).
NotBoolean
Answer '{ANSWER}' is not boolean.
NotDate
Answer '{ANSWER}' is not a valid date.
NotInRange
Answer '{ANSWER}' is not in range '{RANGE}'.
NotInteger
Answer '{ANSWER}' is not an integer value.
NotNumeric
Answer '{ANSWER}' is not numeric.
NotSingleAnswer
Only one answer is allowed.
OtherNotSelected
Answer '{ANSWER}' ({CATEGORY}) has a response but is not selected.
PlayerNavigationDisabled
You have used the browser buttons, please use the Next/Previous buttons below.
ThousandsSeparator
The thousands separator character is not allowed.
TooFewAnswers
There are too few answers, at least '{MINANSWERS}' are required.
TooLittleText
The answer does not have enough text, current length is '{LENGTH}',, minimum is '{MINLENGTH}'.
TooManyAnswers
There are too many answers, only '{MAXANSWERS}' are allowed.
TooManyDecimalPlaces
The answer '{ANSWER}' has too many decimal places. The maximum is '{MAXLENGTH}'.
TooManyDigits
The answer '{ANSWER}' has too many digits. The maximum is '{MAXLENGTH}'.
TooMuchText
The answer has too much text, current length is '{LENGTH}',, maximum is '{MAXLENGTH}'.
If an error occurs on a question that is nested within another question, such as a question in a loop, the error is shown next to the nested question, as shown here:
Three-dimensional grid with messages for the repeated question only
The interviewing program also generates error messages at the question’s parent level but does not normally display them. The parent question error specifies the name and number of the subquestion that caused the error. This is repeated for all levels independent of how many levels of nesting there are. See Error messages for questions in loops and blocks for additional information about displaying error messages for these types of questions, and also some examples of what the messages look like on the screen.
The standard error messages are defined in a number of languages in the StandardTexts.mdd file in C:\Program Files\Common Files\IBM\SPSS\DataCollection\<version> IOM. You can change these default texts using MDM Label Manager, or you can use Translation Utility to add translations in other languages. To change error messages for certain projects only, see Replacing the standard message texts.
Note If you change StandardTexts.mdd in any way you must stop and restart IIS to have your changes recognized. If you are running Windows 2003, you can stop and restart the UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Server application pool rather than restarting IIS if you prefer. This has the advantage of not affecting any other applications that may be using IIS.
When the interviewing program needs to use a standard message text it looks for it in the following places in the following order:
1 Helper fields defined in the metadata for the current question.
2 A StandardTexts block in the metadata section.
3 A default text in StandardTexts.mdd.
4 A default message stored internally in the interviewing program itself. These are always displayed in English unless you are running a translated version of the interviewing program.
See also
Dealing with errors