ERROR: Detection of invalid Refresh Rate [18535]

This article applies to:

E-Prime 3.0
E-Prime 2.0

This item was introduced in E-Prime 2.0 (2.0.10.174).

Symptoms
Later versions of E-Prime display the following error at runtime to prevent you from losing data:

Unable to obtain a valid refresh rate.

Please ensure your display adapter is configured with the most recent and device specific adapter.

Detail

When a display adapter does not accurately report a valid refresh rate, timing errors can occur.

Solution 

To resolve the problem and prevent the error, please do the following:

• Set your computer to use the most recent driver for your machine's graphics card.  PST recommends downloading such drivers from the manufacturer's website (e.g., Intel/Nvidia/AMD) or you can try downloading them by performing a Windows Update. Do not use the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter.
• Do not run on a virtual machine or through virtualization software such as Parallels. E-Prime is supported on native Windows installations only.
• Ensure that the specified refresh rate is supported at the specified resolution. Please refer to the experiment file attached within ERROR: Error 11076: Invalid DisplayFrameThresholdStimDisplay value when running at a 200+ Hz refresh rate [30240]. This experiment creates a text file (.txt) that contains all of the supported resolution and refresh rate pairs for the machine.
• Ensure your graphics system is running at a fixed refresh rate. Please refer to ERROR: G-Sync and FreeSync may cause freezing and runtime errors [37035].

NOTE: If running in a virtual environment for experiment development purposes only, this warning can be disabled temporarily. See below.

E-Prime 2.0.10.182+ and E-Prime 3.0  can be configured to ignore this error. This should only be done temporarily for spot-testing purposes. This option is only recommended to enable continued development of the experiment on a computer or configuration that will not be used for data collection. Open the Experiment Object at the top of the Structure, go to the Devices tab, double-click the Display device, and set the "Throw error if invalid refresh rate" property to No.

The Display Device's "Throw error if invalid refresh rate" property does not exist in E-Prime 2.0.8.90(a) and earlier versions. To suppress the error in versions 2.0.8.90(a) and earlier, setting the "Match desktop resolution at runtime" property to Yes may resolve the error in some environments. This option is also recommended for spot-testing purposes only.

See Also:
ERROR: Microsoft Basic Display Adapter not recommended error [25496]

ERROR: "Unable to obtain a valid refresh rate" error occurs when attempting to run E-Prime under Windows 10 Creators Update [25857]

Legacy End User Comments