Validation/Error Messages


Additional information may be found at eSRA.lbl.gov/topics

eSRA training, including links to eLearning modules and published Quick Reference Sheets, can be found at eSRA.lbl.gov/training.

Information about error or validation messages can be found at esra.lbl.gov/topics/validation-messages

You can scroll through this document or use Ctrl + Click on the entry or page number in the Table of Contents to jump to the appropriate section.

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.  August 2014 we are experiencing a glitch in the validation messages and are working to correct it.  We can provide you with a temporary fix and then help with the final resolution.

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)
  • Action: Exit the proposal  
  • Go directly into the SF424 application (click here if you need instructions about how to do that) and uncheck the box for the type of budget not needed. 
  • If this does not solve your problem, or you prefer the Help Desk to resolve this for you, send email to eSRAHelp@lbl.gov telling them which budget you are using and they will remove the other budget from the SF424 application.  
  • Explanation:  Somehow both budget forms were included in the SF424 application.  This sometimes happens if the user selects one type, saves, and then selects the other type.  It may occur at other times that we don't know the cause of.

Burden Codes

Burden Codes: This is a required field; therefore, you must provide the required information.
  • Burden codes work differently in eSRA than in RAPID.  Most burdens can and will be derived.  
    • There is a short list of burden codes that cannot be derived by the system that must be individually selected by the user at the time the proposal is prepared.  
    • If none of them apply, check the box, "None of the Above."  
    • 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.

Department Name

The value "Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory" has a length of 37 which exceeds the character limit of 30 for this field.
  • Explanation: This is a problem in divisions where there the scientists do how have a specific department assignment, such as Physical Biosciences.  We are working with the Programmers to automatically enter the division name in both the division and department fields.  
  • Until then, the OSPIP CO will manually change the entry just prior to submission to Grants.gov

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.  
  • 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

Applies to all messages
  • "Although the Validation messages gives me the field name, I don't know where that is."  
    • If you run "Validate Proposal" as an activity from the proposal workspace, you only receive the validation message, but not the location.  
    • If you run validation messages by using "hide/show" from inside of the eSRA proposal or the SF424 application, you are often provided with the specific field location of the error and the ability to "jump" to that specific View of the proposal or application..

Fund 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 large, 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.

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.  

Microsoft XP, Microsoft 2000 and VPN

My computer is blocked from network access.
  • As of September 1, 2014, Lab systems will be blocked to computers running on Microsoft XP or Microsoft 200 operating systems and this includes home computers or laptops using this operating system and VPN.
  • You will need to upgrade the computers running on XP and 2000 to be able to use them with Lab systems.
  • For more information, see the IT posting on their Cyber Security site https://commons.lbl.gov/display/cpp/Windows+XP+and+2000+Disallowed.

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

RAPID Award Type: This is a required field; therefore, you must provide the required information.
  • This is a newly required field in eSRA for various reporting purposes.  
    • The user should, to the best of your ability, answer this question based on the drop-down set of options.  
    • The OSPIP CO will review the selection and it will be updated at the time of award.

Rate Field 

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.
  • Action: Exit the proposal.  
  • Go directly into the SF424 application (instructions for Direct Access to the SF424 Application are on the eSRA website training page) and check the box for the correct type of budget.  
  • Save.  
  • 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 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:  
    • 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.
  • 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. 

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 OSPIP. 
  • You cannot fix this. When the OSPIP CO approves the proposal this field will be filled in on the SF424 and the error message will be resolved.

Update Proposal

Could not update the Funding Proposal due to one or more errors: 
  • "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 SmartForm 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.

WN BNR Code

WN BNR Code: This is a required field; therefore, you must provide the required information.
  • This is a newly required field (added Jan 10, 2014) in preparation for F$M deployment in October 2014.  
  • If your non-federal sponsor is precluded by law from providing an advance, the question should be answered "yes."  In all other cases, the answer is "no."