Hi everyone,
I am conducting the same study as I have conducted before, and I have never experienced any problems with filling my slots. But today recruiting participants has been hard. Because my study is interactive (i.e., multiple participants interacting in real-time) this causes a huge problem. Is anyone experiencing similar issues?
Thank you so much!
1 Like
Hey @Annika_Wyss, welcome to the community!
We’ve been seeing a few reports of this happening, and we’re very sorry for any inconvenience caused. Are you still experiencing this?
Hi Josh,
yes the problem persists. Is it possible that the number of studies available is much higher than usually? Usually my slots were full within a few minutes and now, unfortunately, it’s totally the opposite (the payment etc. is the same as it used to be). Do you have any idea?
Thank you so much for your help!
1 Like
We have made some recent changes to the site which may have resulted in the recruitment being slightly slower than expected. Our developer team are working on speeding this up again as soon as possible!
Could you provide me with the name of the study where you’re having problems?
Thank you Josh for your reply, that’s very helpful to know.
I have tried a few sessions yesterday and today (see attached). The problem is that I need at least 4 participants to take the study pretty much at the same time (after reading the instructions, I match groups of four, and if no group can be formed within a time frame of five minutes, they will be paid the participation fee but no bonus, and I will have no data)… Previously, this has never been a problem (I have conducted almost identical studies on Prolific at least 10 times). So even if I would keep the study online for 5 hours and have 30 participants taking the study dispersed over time, that would not be hepful as I cannot match them.
Therefore, I have stopped the sessions after about 15 minutes because in the end I will have no data and just pay people to read the instructions, wait, and leave as a consequences of a low participantion rate.
Let me know if you need more information!
Thanks for taking care and kind regards, Annika
1 Like
Thanks for the additional info.
Our team is looking into the cause of this problem, and I’ll let you know as soon as there’s an update 
Apologies again for the inconvenience this is causing you!
Hey @Annika_Wyss, is this problem still affecting you?
Our team is saying that the problem is resolving itself in some cases.
Hi Josh, thanks for asking - yes, it is still a problem (last try: 2.30pm today). I have also tried to change different filters (approval rate, previous submissions etc.). Nothing has helped.
It’s really hard to get the slots full within a short period of time and I hope that it will get fixed soon so that we can run our interactive experiment, which we need for our revision.
Thanks a lot for helping and best wishes,
Annika
I’m very sorry that you’re still experiencing trouble.
I see that you’ve been in contact with my colleague, Laura. She’s been away this week, so that’s why it’s taken some time to get a reply. We’re very sorry about that!
I’ve highlighted it to the team, and they’ll be in touch as soon as they can