Validation/Error Messages


Additional information may be found at Supplemental Information by Topic page.

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Assurance Number Field

When Vertebrate Animals is "No", Assurance Number does not apply. (NIH 3.9.1)
  • Action: You can ignore this message. Explanation: We have submitted a trouble-ticket with the eSRA programmers because this seems to be giving us a false warning. 

Budget Periods

NIH ____ Grants are restricted to x years or less.  Please adjust your budget periods.
  • Action: If you are trying the enter the correct number of budget periods and get this message, contact the eSRAHelp desk.  

Budgets

Both a modular and a detailed budget have been included with this submission.  One of the other may be submitted. (NIH 5.0.1)
  • Both budgets were included in the Grants.gov application package.  This could have happened if you changed the budget type after starting to prepare the budgets, or sometimes is is a glitch on the Grants.gov side; but it is easy to fix.
  • Exit the eSRA proposal. 
  • Go directly into the SF424 application and uncheck the box for the type of budget not needed. 
    • If you need assistance getting directly into the SF424 application, refer to Direct Access to Grants.gov Application QR5012 on the Supplemental Information by Topics page for step-by-step instructions.
  • If this does not solve your problem, send email to eSRAHelp@lbl.gov telling them which budget you are using and they will remove the other budget from the SF424 application.  

Burden Indicators

  • Most burdens can and will be derived.  
    • There is a short list of burden indicators that cannot be derived by the system that must be individually selected by the user at the time the proposal is prepared.  
    • If you have questions about which burdens apply for a particular proposal, you should refer to the burden matrix provided by the Budget Office of contact a subject matter expert on indirect costs in the budget office.
Clinical Trial
The Clinical Trial question should not answered if the answer to Human Subject Involved is "No".
  • If there are no human subjects involved with the research, then this question does not apply and the correct answer is "blank." 
  • Go to question 6.3.b and clear the answers.  
  • Update the SF424 application and the error message should be cleared.

Error Occurred

An error has occurred.  Please contact your system administrator for assistance.
  • This message most often occurs when there are too many errors for the system to process.  
  • Don't run the 'Validate Proposal' activity at the beginning of proposal preparation.  It is designed to work when you believe the proposal is complete.
  • Try running the Validation process from the SF424 Workspace instead of from the eSRA Proposal Workspace; but this process will only check the Grants.gov application and not the LBNL proposal required fields.  
  • If you still receive this message, contact eSRAHelp@lbl.gov for assistance.  

Federal ID

The mechanism () of the prior submission does not match the mechanism of the FOA - FederalID
  • Action: You can ignore this warning. 
  • Explanation: This occurs on Resubmissions, Renewals, and Revisions. 
    • The system is trying to compare the funding mechanism of the funding announcement with the Federal ID entered. 
    • Per NIH instructions, the fund mechanism (R01, R21, etc) is not included in the Federal ID. Because of this, you will always get this warning. Since this warning comes from Grants.gov and not from eSRA, we cannot program it out.

Field Locations for Grants.gov validation errors

  • Although the Validation messages gives me the field name, I don't know where that is.
    • If you run the 'Validate Proposal and SF424' activity on a Grants.gov from the proposal workspace, you only receive eSRA proposal validation messages with the location and a 'Jump To' link for required proposal questions that were not answered, but the Grants.gov application validation messages will provide the field name, but not a link to the location.  
    • This is because the eSRA Proposal and the SF424 application are separate modules linked within eSRA.  The 'Validate Proposal and SF424' activity checks for errors in both modules, but you cannot jump between modules.
  • The solution (if it is an error you know you must fix)
    • You can navigate to the SF424 application workspace and use the activity 'Validate Submission' to get the list of only the SF424 application errors and it will include the location and a 'Jump To' link.
    • If you need assistance getting directly into the SF424 application, refer to Direct Access to Grants.gov Application QR5012 on the Supplemental Information by Topics page for step-by-step instructions.

Funds Requested Field 

The Funds Requested for the Indirect Cost Item, "Direct Cost Base (composite rate applied)", has a value of $xxx which is off by more than a dollar from the calculated value $xxx
  • Action: Don't ignore the error message. 
    • If the difference is small, it is due to a rounding issue because of the complex nature of LBNL's indirect costs. 
    • If the difference is greater than $10, then there is a real error somewhere on the SF424 budget line for indirect costs.  
  • Explanation: The Validation process double‐checks certain math on a proposal, including the calculation of indirect costs (indirect cost rate X direct cost base). Because LBNL has a compound method for calculating indirect costs, we calculate to back into the indirect cost rate (indirect costs / direct costs). 
  • The error message is triggered when the difference between the data provided and the data calculated for indirect costs is more then $1. 

Fund Mechanism is unknown

The funding mechanism "xxx" is an unknown funding mechanism.  This may cause required validations to be omitted, allowing incorrect values to be submitted and possibly rejection of this application.  The FOA funding mechanism needs to be either corrected, or the list of NIH activity codes needs to be updated.

  • Action: Don't ignore the error message. Take a screen shot of the validation message and send it to eSRAHelp@lbl.gov along with the proposal number.  A Site Administrator can make the appropriate correction to how the funding opportunity is identified by eSRA so the correct and required validation will be applied to the proposal.
  • Explanation: There is a conflict between how NIH listed the funding opportunity and how eSRA parses the Funding Opportunity to extract the FOA type. 

Human Subjects Indefinite

The Human Subjects Involvement Indefinite question should not be answered if the answer to Human Subjects Involved is "No".
  • If there are no human subjects involved with the research, then this question does not apply and the correct answer is "blank." 
  • Go to question 6.3.g and clear the answers.  
  • Update the SF424 application and the error message should be cleared.

Involve Human Specimens

You might receive this error message when you answer 'No' to Human Subjects.  This is a relatively new question from NIH and it must be manually answered in the SF424 applications package.  It is not asked or mapped from the eSRA Proposal.  These are the steps:
  1. Navigate to the SF424 Application Package through the 'Submission to Sponsor' tab
  2. Edit the Grant Application and go to the 'PHS Human Subjects and Clinical Trials Information' View.  
  3. Answer question, 'If No to Human Subjects - Does the proposed research involve human specimens and/or data?'
  4. Save this and return to the eSRA proposal.  Your answer will be saved and will not be overwritten by future updates to the SF424 Application.

Login Disabled for This User

The specific error message might look like this: "com/webridge.layout.HrmlPageLayoutImpl.render(): caught ' com.webridge.entity.MethodInvocationException: "login disabled for this user account" during HTML generation.
  • One cause of this error message is the person's profile (not their researcher profile, but their background profile) is flagged as "No Longer Lab Employee."  
    • This happens when a person retires and is rehired.  The flag is set automatically by the system interface with HRIS when the person leaves; but must be manually re-set when the person returns. 
    • This has also been seen when a person converts from a post-doc classification to a scientist classification.
    • There could be other causes for this flag to be set to "No Longer Lab Employee" and we will look at them on a case-by-case basis.
  • Action: Contact eSRAHelp@lbl.gov because a Site Administrator will need to resolve the problem.  If applicable, explain which of the above changes in employment are relevant to this user and confirm their current status.  

Page Size

The size of page x of the attached document "(document name)" is invalid. It should be the U.S. standard letter page size of 8.5 x 11 inches.
  • Action: Must correct the page size.  
    • Adobe and some other PDF applications provide for the ability to manipulate and re-size pages within a compiled document.  
    • An alternative is to print the offending page to PDF specifying 8-1/2 x 11 page size, or print the offending page to a printer, scan the 8-1/2 x 11 printout, and re-incorporate it into the PDF document.  
    • You will then need to upload the new document and "Update SF424" to move the new document into the SF424 application.  
  • Explanation: NIH only permits the standard U.S. letter sized page.  
  • This error most often occurs when incorporating documents from Europe where they use the standard A4 page size or journal articles because the journal page size is not 8-1/2 x 11.


RAPID Award Type (also known as LBNL Award Type or FMS Award Type)

This is a required field; therefore, you must provide the required information.
  • The RA should, to the best of their ability, answer this question based on the drop-down set of options.  
  • The SPO CO will review the selection and it will be updated at the time of award.

Rate Field on Grants.gov Application 

This number may only have a total of 5 digits.
  • Action: Double-check the indirect cost rate that you entered.  If the IDC rate only has 5 digits, you can ignore this error message. 
  • Explanation: We have submitted a trouble-ticket with the eSRA vendor because this seems to be giving us a false error.  
  • It will not prevent your proposal from being submitted. 
This number may only have 2 digits after the decimal point.
  • Action: Double-check the indirect cost rate that you entered. If it only has 2 digits after the decimal point, you can ignore this error message.   
  • Explanation: We have submitted a trouble-ticket with the eSRA vendor because this seems to be giving us a false error. 
  • It will not prevent your proposal from being submitted.

SF424 application missing a budget

Could not locate SF-424 project: 'sch' is undefined.
  • Go directly to the SF424 application workspace.
    • If you need assistance getting directly into the SF424 application, refer to Direct Access to Grants.gov Application QR5012 on the Supplemental Information by Topics page for step-by-step instructions.
  • Edit the SF424 application 
    • The first page should display the forms included in the application package.
    • Check the box for the correct type of budget.  
  • Save and exit.  
  • Go back to the eSRA proposal and the error should be cleared and the link should be active.  
  • If this does not work, contact eSRAHelp@lbl.gov for more assistance.  
  • Explanation: This sometimes happens when the eSRA proposal is copied or when View 9.0 is saved before selecting a budget type, or when you change from Modular to Detailed budget or vice versa. 
    • Sometimes this happens and we don't know why.

Submission Failed

When submitting application to Grants.gov, the SF424 state changes to "Submission Failed" and history records the following entry "Error Response Received for Application Submitted" and no other information is available.  This application may have passed all Validation checks and the Submission Pre-Check; but it fails upon actual submission.  No Grants.gov email notifications are received because the application never gets completely to Grants.gov.
  • Probable Causes:  
    • Grants.gov server was extremely busy and submission of the application timed out before completing.  (We've only experienced this cause one time.)
    • One or more of the source documents contains embedded coding that Grants.gov cannot recognize.  The two most likely culprits are the Letters of Support and the Research Plan; but it would be a good idea to check other PDF documents that might contain graphics as well.
    • Uploaded PDF document exceed the allowable size limits.  A single file cannot exceed 100mb.  All uploaded PDF documents combined cannot exceed 200mb.
  • Possible option to find a solution:
    • Action for Letters of Support:  Print the Letters of Support, then scan them as a PDF.  This will remove any coding the letters might contain.  Embedded coding has been found in some letterhead logos or in electronic or JPEG signatures.  Since LBNL did not create these source documents, we cannot control possible embedded coding.
    • Action for Research Plan:  Re-create the Research Plan paying particular attention to each embedded graphic to make sure there is no hidden coding contained in the graphic that is being added to the PDF document.  You might need to reference online help for your PDF application for assistance with this.
    • Action if file sizes are too large: Use file compression options in the PDF application to compress files to a smaller file size. 
    • The eSRA Help Desk can help you troubleshoot the cause and recommend solutions.  Contact them early because Grants.gov submission errors can be complicated and time consuming to resolve with tight and unforgiving deadlines.

Total Estimated Amount

This is a required field; therefore you must provide the required information.
  • Action:  Make sure the budget information is entered in question 9.3.a and you've answered question 9.3.b regarding FAC Waiver.  
  • Then you will need to execute the activity "Update SF424" to push the value to the SF424 application. When you save View 9.3 or 9.3.A the value for 9.3.c will calculate; but the SF424 application doesn't automatically update when answers are provided in the eSRA proposal. 

Trust Agreement

You must agree before submitting this application
  • Action: The RA and PI can ignore this error message.  
  • Explanation: This is only an error because the proposal hasn't yet been approved by SPO. 
  • You cannot fix this. When the SPO CO approves the proposal this field will be filled in on the SF424 and the error message will be automatically resolved.

Update Proposal

Could not update the Funding Proposal due to one or more errors: 
  • The message reads something like this: "Validation Failed: ClickCommerce.Extranet.SF424.ScriptMethods.reflectedInvokeMethod: Web Service 'GetOpportunitiesWithInfo' failed: The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send."
  • This message indicates we could not connect to the Grants.gov website to connect and retrieve the funding opportunity.  
    • Check with the Grants.gov website to see if they are reporting technical difficulties.  
    • If that is not the cause, contact eSRAHelp@lbl.gov for more assistance.

Unable to Display Type of Document

When you tried to open a document that was uploaded into an eSRA Proposal View or stored in history, you got this message and the system never opened your document.  The problem is either with Adobe Reader or your browser.
  • Action: First, make sure that you have the most recent version of Adobe Reader and the browser you are using.  If those are up-to-date and you still have the problem, try using eSRA in a different browser.  Some people have a better experience with IE, others report a better experience with Firefox, Chrome, or Safari.
  • Explanation: This does not seem to be a systemic problem with eSRA.  You might need to have IT help you adjust settings in your browser to completely resolve the problem.

Vertebrate Animals Indefinite

The Vertebrate Animals Used Indefinite question should not be answered if the answer to Vertebrate Animals Used is "No".
  • If there are no vertebrate animals involved with the research, then this question does not apply and the correct answer is "blank."  
  • Go to question 6.3.h and clear the answers. 
  • Update the SF424 application and the error message should be cleared.