Dear Limesurvey Experts,
I have a survey containing questions where the Display-Option "Always hide this question" is set to "On".
When testing the survey, everything works like a charm (=questions are not shown) !
When I copy this survey to create a new survey, the  "Always hide this question" is set to "Off" in some of the questions.
Obviously the state of "Always hide this question" gets lost during the copy-process

Setup:
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
LimeSurvey Community Edition   Version 6.9.0+241218 
DB: Postgres 16

Best regards & many thanks
Wolfgang
 

When I copy this survey to create a new survey, the "Always hide this question" is set to "Off" in some of the questions.

The "in some of the questions" will be the part that will make troubleshooting more difficult. Do you see any pattern? Are these specific questions? Always the same questions? Or is it random?

Ideally we would see the LSS file to be able to reproduce. Because according to you it doesn't seem to be a general issue that all hiden questions always are shown after importing. So I guess it doesn't make sense for us to try to reproduce it with any other survey than your's.

Also: Before trying to go deeper into troubleshooting, always update to the latest version, to avoid to try to solve an issue, that has already been solved.

Hi,
thank you so much for the superfast feedback !!!!
In the meantime I upgraded to 6.10 and switched the DB from Postgres to MariaDB.
Now the strange loss of the "Always hide this question" setting is gone (which would have been a real show-stopper for me

For testing purposes I uploaded the problematic lss file.
G02Q12 <= setting lost after import - missing "Always hide this question" attribute
G02Q42 <= setting OK after import - "Always hide this question" = 1
G02Q72 <= setting lost after import  
G02Q12 <= NOT OK
G02Q42 <= OK

When importing the attaches (faulty) lss file, the "Always hide" attributes are missing in V6.9 and V6.10
When exporting the survey on the 6.10 system and importing the lss file on the 6.9 system everything is OK.
My (!!!)  assumption: something was broken in the 6.9 "export lss" function which is fixed in 6.10 - maybe(!!) it has also something to to with Postgres...

Best regards & many thanks again for thet COOL product !
Wolfgang




 

Hi Wolfgang!

What a pity that you did two changes (upgrading AND switching to MariaDB).

Because these two would have also been my main suspects.

If you would have just upgraded, we could narrow it down a bit more. But this way, we can't be sure if it was the update (which would be good) or if it is an error with PostgreSQL, which would be bad. Because this would mean that the error could still persist in PostgreSQL. Errors in other DB engines than MySQL/MariaDB often don't get noticed quickly, because most users run it with MySQL/MariaDB.

Despite the problem being solved for you, I recommend to create a bug report and mention that after the uggrade plus switch to MariaDB the problem is solved, but there might still be a problem with PostgreSQL.

Glad that it worked out for you though.

Unfortunately, I am already on 6.10.0, otherwise I could have given your LSS a test and see if it works well on LS before 6.10.0 on MariaDB/MySQL.

Maybe someone else who is still on an older version can give it a try.

For testing purposes I uploaded the problematic lss file.
G02Q12 <= setting lost after import - missing "Always hide this question" attribute
G02Q42 <= setting OK after import - "Always hide this question" = 1
G02Q72 <= setting lost after import
G02Q12 <= NOT OK
G02Q42 <= OK

Despite running on LS 6.10.0 and MySQL/MariaDB I imported your LSS file into my installation, here the results:


G02Q12 --> Always hide this question "OFF"
G02Q42 --> Always hide this question "ON"
G02Q72 --> Always hide this question "OFF"

So basically my import shows the same result as your's. Q12 and Q72 are not set to hidden, while Q42 is.

However, I am not quite sure what these questions are for?They show a fixed question text, but I can't see that there is something stored into the numerical input field. And as they are supposed to be hidden, no one will be able to write something into this input field.

Is there supposed to be something written into this field with a script? If not, you could also just use a text display quesiton to "store" this information.

I just tested 6.10 with Postgres (on the same DB server I used for running 6.9).

Result:
Export/Import/Copy works on 6.10 with Postgres and MariaDB OK - no loss of    "Always hide this question" attribute
The import of the lss file produced with 6.9/Postgres results in the partial loss of the   "Always hide this question" attribute on 6.10 with Postgres and with MariaDB.
So the problem is related to version 6.9 (I did not test 6.9 with MariaDB)...

The problem is obviously fixed in the new version, which is VERY good !

I will stick with MariaDB, because of the "Backup entire database" feature which is not available with Postgres and the fact, that most users run MariaDB.

Regarding your remark: "However, I am not quite sure what these questions are for?"
As you have probably seen, the survey is an assessment related to Cybersecurity (Swiss IKT-Minimum-Standards = US-NIST Cyber Security Framework)...
The hidden questions will store the target value of the assessment questions. The participant should not see (or alter) this questions, but the survery-designer should be able to pre-define the target-value - which is important for the analysis.

Best regards & many thanks for you helpful support !
Wolfgang
 

The problem is obviously fixed in the new version, which is VERY good !

That is great to hear, because this means there is no need for further testing or a bug report. Seems like this was an issue in the older version and has been fixed with the next version.

The hidden questions will store the target value of the assessment questions. The participant should not see (or alter) this questions, but the survery-designer should be able to pre-define the target-value - which is important for the analysis.

So basically the survey designer writes a target value into this field. Understood.

As a suggestion from my side: in this case I would probably either use a text display question, or even better an equation question because with the equation question you could just write the desired value into the question and even calculate with this value throughout the survey. But the best thing is: It won't just be in the Title of the export in CSV or XLS, but it will be written into each line, so you have the "soll" with each data set, not just as the question text.

Thank you for your advice. Yes, that is my plan, to have the target/soll in an own column.
I stopped the implementation when I ran into the "hide question" problem - because that was a real show-stopper...

But the problem is solved now - which is great   

wkorosec wrote:

G02Q12 <= setting lost after import - missing "Always hide this question" attribute


 

hide questioi are not set in LSS , then when import : not set.
Seems to be export the issue.