TIMING: Chronos Experiments Generate Task Action Protracted Finding [39561]

This article applies to:

E-Prime 3.0

E-Prime 2.0

Detail
The “Task Action Protracted” Experiment Advisor Warning primarily flags when a Task Event takes longer than 1.5 ms to execute, see INFO: Listing of Experiment Advisor Modules [19137]. Most Device Task Events communicate information immediately to external equipment, such as sending a signal to mark the occurrence of a unique E-Prime Event within a separate data stream. Script Task Events allow users to execute brief commands within a subroutine. Since Task Events typically occur during time-critical portions of an experiment, any instance of a Task Event, whether Device or Script, that exceeds 1.5 ms in execution time generates the Task Action Protracted finding, see E-STUDIO: Using Task Events [22862].

In addition to Task Events that take longer than 1.5 ms to execute, an experiment with Chronos often generates this finding even without any Task Events. If you see this warning from a run of your Chronos experiment, check if the warning mentions “Sync”. This Task Action refers to the recurrent synchronization that occurs between Chronos’ internal clock and the computer’s clock. This occurs during a non-timing-critical portion of the experiment, namely, when the data from a procedure run logs to disk once the procedure run is complete. The synchronization often takes up to 3 ms. In this case, it is safe to ignore this warning.

NOTE: Chronos.AudioIn.Record Task Events may take longer than 1.5 ms to execute and then separately throw this warning. Reach out to PST Product Services & Support if you see any other Chronos Device Task Event throw this warning.

See Also:

E-STUDIO: Configuring Task Events [24789]

TIMING: Chronos Timing Article [24513]

INFO: Experiment Advisor Module [19051]