Prometric Exam kept Fteezing and crashing during exam

[CaliPE]

The Board is aware of the partial refunds for the March cancellations and has contacted Prometric. Candidates with cancelled appointments will receive a full refund.

 

[georgette]

All Engineering Surveying and Seismic Principles exams are to be cancelled through the end of Quarter 1 (i.e., March 31). Your eligibility will be moved to Q2.

Do you know if it is expected for the problem to be for sure fixed by Q2?

Prometric also sent out a cancellation email which stated " Due to technical issues your examination has been cancelled and testing has been suspended until further notice." No mention of Q2/April etc.

Is it a possibility that it would not be resolved by Q2? Thanks.

 

[Calicivil]

The Board is aware of the partial refunds for the March cancellations and has contacted Prometric. Candidates with cancelled appointments will receive a full refund.

Will we get refunded for exams we have to retake with prometric because of the computer issues?

 

[jr_inthefog]

This is what the board told me. They contacted me initially. I have to re-take due to the glitch. “You will not need to submit a Re-Examination Form or repay the CA exam fees. When you schedule your exam in Quarter 2, you will need to pay the Prometric seat fees at the time of making the appointment and will need to request a refund of those fees on Prometric’s website.” If you did not get any notice, then I would contact them.

 

[NKG]

I had scheduled my test for end of this month and received cancellation email from the board and prometric. Do we have to wait till Quarter 2 to be able to reschedule? Just wondering if anyone here is able to reschedule or we have to wait for further correspondence from the board.

 

[CAPLS]

I had scheduled my test for end of this month and received cancellation email from the board and prometric. Do we have to wait till Quarter 2 to be able to reschedule? Just wondering if anyone here is able to reschedule or we have to wait for further correspondence from the board.

Those that were previously canceled will receive further correspondence by email once scheduling is back online for these exams.

 

[purple-521]

It is almost the end of the first quarter..
Has anyone received any updates on this issue? Such as when will the re-scheduling open?

 

[XrayCP1]

I was one of the test takers who got the error on the test, and I got this email today:

The Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors and Geologists was notified by Prometric in early March that there was a technical issue affecting the delivery of both the Engineering Surveying and Seismic Principles exams. All appointments were cancelled and scheduling was blocked through the end of Quarter 1. We have recently received confirmation from Prometric that the technical issue will be resolved in time to resume testing in Quarter 2 and candidates are now able to schedule a new appointment using Prometric’s website: BPELSG - The California Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists | Prometric. Please use your Candidate ID number from your Authorization-to-Test (ATT) notice, which you will receive shortly after this email. You do not need to submit a Re-Examination Form or pay the state exam fee, however you will need to pay the Prometric seat fee when you schedule your new appointment.

If you could not complete your exam due to technical issues or your March 2021 appointment was cancelled, a partial refund of your seat fee was automatically issued by the Prometric scheduling system. Prometric will be sending out communication about refunding the remaining fee. Any questions about refunds should be directed to Prometric’s Candidate Care Team.

We appreciate your patience and apologize for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,
Natalie King, PE

I received my ATT and I immediately signed up for the exam in April. Fingers crossed that I will be able to pass (and sit for) my last exam before earning my PE!

 

[CaliPE]

It is almost the end of the first quarter..
Has anyone received any updates on this issue? Such as when will the re-scheduling open?

An email was sent out earlier today to all candidates affected by the March cancellations as well as an ATT notice for scheduling in Quarter 2.

 

[Assistant to the RM]

So has anyone who had issues in Q1 rescheduled for Q2 yet? I've rescheduled seismic for this coming Saturday. Hoping to schedule surveying for the end of April so I can get them both knocked out this month and get results next month, but I will wait to see how the first couple weeks of studying go before I schedule surveying.

I considered waiting to see if they truly had the issues resolved or if problems pop up again, but I decided to roll the dice and be one of the guinea pigs, I'm ready to be done! Also the seismic knowledge from a month ago hasn't completely gone away, but I've been doing a lot of refreshing on the material this week. If I wait too much longer I'd be starting from a deeper hole, as I don't do this type of work regularly.

 

[Assistant to the RM]

I listened in on the public CA Board Meeting today when they were discussing the exam issues. A few notes:
1. They first started having issues in early January of Q1 but thought they had them fixed by the end of January / early Feb. As we all know, the problems returned late February, leading them to cancel the exams while they worked on a solution.
2. Prometric is confident they have found and fixed the problem. There was an "authoring issue" that prevented some pdf images from loading. They have "service scripts" monitoring the pdf performance during the exam. Items with errors will "not be presented to candidates during the exam". I'm not exactly sure what that last part means? Surely that doesn't mean they will pull problems on an individual basis, leading to less than 55 questions for some, or different "replacement" questions for others? Not sure what it means, but that's what I wrote down.
3. They also have a "command center" set up during the testing. They didn't elaborate on that, but it sounded like a dedicated support team specializing in this exam would be ready for helpdesk calls in their tech center. Hopefully it's just precautionary because I would still rather not be interrupted even if they can fix it right away...
4. Finally, Natalie King reported that they had 5 people taking an exam today, and at that time (about noon Pacific) 3 were finished and they had no issues. I'd rather have a slightly larger sample size, but it's a start. Hats off to anyone brave enough to attempt one of these exams again the first day they are live, and April Fool's Day at that...

We'll see how it goes on Saturday, I'll post my experience when done.

 

[KirbyQ]

I listened in on the public CA Board Meeting today when they were discussing the exam issues. A few notes:
1. They first started having issues in early January of Q1 but thought they had them fixed by the end of January / early Feb. As we all know, the problems returned late February, leading them to cancel the exams while they worked on a solution.
2. Prometric is confident they have found and fixed the problem. There was an "authoring issue" that prevented some pdf images from loading. They have "service scripts" monitoring the pdf performance during the exam. Items with errors will "not be presented to candidates during the exam". I'm not exactly sure what that last part means? Surely that doesn't mean they will pull problems on an individual basis, leading to less than 55 questions for some, or different "replacement" questions for others? Not sure what it means, but that's what I wrote down.
3. They also have a "command center" set up during the testing. They didn't elaborate on that, but it sounded like a dedicated support team specializing in this exam would be ready for helpdesk calls in their tech center. Hopefully it's just precautionary because I would still rather not be interrupted even if they can fix it right away...
4. Finally, Natalie King reported that they had 5 people taking an exam today, and at that time (about noon Pacific) 3 were finished and they had no issues. I'd rather have a slightly larger sample size, but it's a start. Hats off to anyone brave enough to attempt one of these exams again the first day they are live, and April Fool's Day at that...

We'll see how it goes on Saturday, I'll post my experience when done.

Thanks for the update and good luck for the exam. I am newly approved for Q2 exams and hopefully I can get my ATT soon.

 

[Assistant to the RM]

Well I'm happy to report I took the seismic exam this morning and the test performed flawlessly. Even happier to report I think I did pretty well! The images opened in a split screen format, rather than a pop-up window in front. There were a couple tense moments where a small pop-up window seemed like it was trying to load, but then it quickly went to the split screen. Not sure if that was the way it was always intended to work, or if that was a change to deal with the errors, but either way it worked fine.

 

[Assistant to the RM]

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a full refund from Prometric this past week for both of my cancelled exams. Like many of you I got a partial refund on my credit card for the exam that was cancelled before I attempted it (but within the 30-day window) which was why it was only a partial refund. The seismic exam that glitched out on me was actually considered "attempted", I even got a notice of completion email later that weekend, so there was no partial refund for cancellation. I expected to have to fight Prometric for it, but I received a check for both the remainder of the partial refund for surveying, and a full refund for the seismic. Nothing for my time & trouble, and additional delays they have caused me though...

 

[Schmitty]

I got a paper check refund for the remaining portion of my fee as well. Took the rescheduled exam this weekend, hope to not need to take it again!