** Using WeBWorK **

See attached picture. The problem itself is short:

----------------------

DOCUMENT();

loadMacros("PG.pl",

"PGbasicmacros.pl",

"PGanswermacros.pl",

"MathObjects.pl",

"PGessaymacros.pl");

TEXT(beginproblem());

$showPartialCorrectAnswers = 0;

BEGIN_TEXT

$PAR

From your reading, video watching, note taking, and problem solving, name 3 things that you've learned or have questions about.

$PAR

\{essay_box(8,60)\}

$PAR

END_TEXT

ANS(essay_cmp() );

ENDDOCUMENT();

---------------------------------

I'm getting it across multiple courses, but only for some students on each assignment, not all. To make it weirder, it shows the student that they have 0 attempts for the problem, and the student can't see what they previously typed and submitted, but I can actually see their response when I go to grade all the responses. For this reason, I've mostly ignored it, but I'm sure it seems unprofessional to the students, and I've been asking a lot of free response essay questions, so I thought I'd give here a shot.

I tried changing the seed to be the same as a student who didn't get the error, but I didn't have any luck with that. I searched through this forum and found an old SRAND() command, but if there's a different method, I'll give it a try.

I've wondered if it's based on using apostrophes or other symbols in their response, because I also got a similar but separate error on an OPL problem that used a unicode arrow in a popup menu. That error disappeared when I edited the problem to have "-->" and "<-->" as the options in the popup.

My admin/server support is iffy, so bonus points for things I can try from the file manager or by editing the problem itself. But if it's a simple command or two, I can see if our IT will do it. Thanks for any ideas you have!