MTurk Sandbox access blocked

[mkrishnaswamy]

Hello! I've been trying to view my study in the MTurk Sandbox, using my MTurk account. I set up a session by choosing MTurk +Sandbox. Currently, the only way I am able to access the Sandbox is through the link provided in the 'Manage Sessions' section of my study (rather than through my Mturk requester/AWS account). This link makes me log in with my MTurk Sandbox worker account, and evaluates me as a worker, and applied the criteria of the experiments literally.

I am no longer able to view my experiment in the Sandbox, because I tested it in the environment once, and now, I keep getting deemed ineligible. No matter how low I set the HIT, or uncheck boxes, MTurk does not let me see my own experiment in the sandbox. I am also unable to request access to the experiment.

Questions:

1. Is there an alternate way to access my study through my Mturk requester/AWS IAM user account so that I can view my experiment on MTurk
   
2. Is there some alternate settings I can use so that Finding Five will see me as a viable candidate for the experiment and let me access the sandbox?
   

Attached: a picture of my recruitment criteria for the Sandbox.

[Ting]

Hmm...ok, the easier question first:

There's no other way to test a study in sandbox unfortunately. That's how Amazon's API works and I am afraid that's just the way it is. The good news is that the only difference between seeing your study using FF's preview feature and Amazon's sandbox is the limited height in which your study shows up on mturk. Whereas on FF it shows up full-screen. Other than that there's really no difference.

However, there may be a bug? Since you already unchecked blocking repeating and retry, it should let you do subsequent sandbox sessions. Can you share with us a sandbox session ID (FF's session ID)? Not the first sandbox that you did, but subsequent sessions. We'll take a look and see what's going on.

Thanks!

[mkrishnaswamy]

Thank you for your response. I have PMed you the details of my most recent Sandbox attempt, and I can neither see this session on MTurk, nor can I accept it. I am reassured that it will look identical: do you recommend making the frame height 800? I worry that the buttons on screen may not all be visible without scrolling.

[mkrishnaswamy]

Hmm...ok, the easier question first:

There's no other way to test a study in sandbox unfortunately. That's how Amazon's API works and I am afraid that's just the way it is. The good news is that the only difference between seeing your study using FF's preview feature and Amazon's sandbox is the limited height in which your study shows up on mturk. Whereas on FF it shows up full-screen. Other than that there's really no difference.

However, there may be a bug? Since you already unchecked blocking repeating and retry, it should let you do subsequent sandbox sessions. Can you share with us a sandbox session ID (FF's session ID)? Not the first sandbox that you did, but subsequent sessions. We'll take a look and see what's going on.

Thanks!

Dear Ting
Thank you for your prompt response via PM. The pilot collection was ok (I think). I tried to run a Sandbox session, and this time, I am unable to generate a url for my HIT. I've attached a screenshot.

Thanks in advance!

[Ting]

ah...oops! I just did a hacky thing to get your sandbox session launched on MTurk. A more widely applicable fix will come tomorrow. I promise this will be the end of this saga!

[mkrishnaswamy]

ah...oops! I just did a hacky thing to get your sandbox session launched on MTurk. A more widely applicable fix will come tomorrow. I promise this will be the end of this saga!

Haha, I understand. MTurk has so many complexities, I am just glad I know how to use it!

[mkrishnaswamy]

ah...oops! I just did a hacky thing to get your sandbox session launched on MTurk. A more widely applicable fix will come tomorrow. I promise this will be the end of this saga!

Thanks Ting! I was able to get my experiment to work in Sandbox mode!

[Ting]

That's awesome! Thanks for letting us know about the issue. Glad to have it fixed.