We have investigated multiatom resonant photoemission (MARPE) on an adsorbate system c(2 x 2)O/Ni( 100). We observe a negligible MARPE enhancement (2 +/- %) of the O 1 s photoelectron intensity when the excitation energy is tuned to the Ni L-3 absorption resonance. A strong nonlinearity in our photoelectron detection system is shown to produce artificial MARPE effects of up to 140% for uncorrected spectra. The possibly dominating influence of measurement artifacts in systems besides the studied adsorbates suggests a cartful review of the intensity of the MARPE effect and its applicability in general.