Trouble Shooting

Below is a brief list of possible problems that you may come across during data collections at BM16. During normal working hours (09:00 - 18:00, Mon-Fri. inclusive) you should contact your local contact before proceeding with any of the scenarios below. Outside of normal working hours, you will have a contact number to reach your LC up until around 23:00 hours, but please check the BM16 or ESRF webpages first as there is often good tips and advice on what to do if faced with problems on the beamline. Unless there is a serious problem or your LC gives you permission please avoid phoning your LC after 23:00 and remember you can reach the Experimental Hall Operator (x2525) anytime after hours for advice.

Check position of the cryohead

There should be an alignment tool in the experimental hutch for the nozzle of the cryojet (attached by wire to the cryostream). Use your eye if you cannot find this tool or to fine tune it if you have data quality problems. Check here for an interesting experiment on data quality from different cryo to sample distances!

3-Click centering does not work

Failure of the 3-click centering procedure: usually most problems with this software can be solved by quitting the application either on xPicasso or on ybm16ctrl then restarting by clicking on the samplevideo icon.

You then need to re-initilize the connection between ProDC or MxCuBe and the SampleVideo software. This is done by typing the command reconfig in the PX window on xbm16ctrl:

PX> reconfig

if this fails it is advisable to call your Local contact.

Sample video feed on SampleVideo software is blank or beam profile/PHI rotation axis does not refresh

Restart the grabber and update the SPEC variables by right clicking on the image and selecting refresh.

Images are blank or look odd

There are several possible reasons for this, no beam on sample due to:

1. The time limit on continuous automatic mode operation of the front end has passed. In this case the front end will close automatically. Just reopen it using IDDAPLI application in the Front End desktop and remember to stop and reset automatic mode occasionally.
2. It's a refill and there's no beam in the storage ring.
3. The fast shutter is not opening. If the images aren't blank but have vertical streaks, then the fast shutter is not opening/closing correctly and needs to be replaced. You should contact your Local Contact to do this. The streaked diffraction does not necessarily occur every image but maybe only once every 5 frames.
4. Your sample does not diffract or is not in the beam. For the former case you should see fibre diffraction from the loop if the loop is centered in the X-ray beam. If you are sure the crystal is centered on the rotation axis and that the sample always diffracts, please contact your LC and he/she will check the beam position.

ProDC, MxCuBe or the MarCCD has stopped/hung

Please try the following in order:

1. Try exiting ProDC using the pull-down file menu in the top left corner of the GUI (file -> exit).
2. Restart ProDC from the icon on the xbm16ctrl desktop
3. If you are not able to quit ProDC from the GUI, try a control-c in the PX window which will probably be iconised on the bottom menu bar on xbm16ctrl
4. If you still have problems try killing all the background ProDC processes from the command prompt (ie open a terminal window), identify the process number of ProDC and kill it with the unix kill command as follows:

5. xbm16ctrl:~ % ps -ef | grep -i 'prodc'

   opd16 18360 16295 0 17:21 ? 00:00:00 /bin/bash /users/blissadm/local/bin/prodc

   opd16 18757 18360 0 17:21 ? 00:00:00 /bin/ksh /users/blissadm/bin/prodc

   opd16 19085 18757 0 17:21 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /users/blissadm/local/bin/prodc_start_spec.sh

   opd16 29120 28958 0 18:13 pts/4 00:00:00 grep -i bin/prodc

   In this example the process number is 18360. Type kill -9 followed by the process_number (kill -9 18360 in the example).

6. Restart ProDC as described above. When ProDC starts up it will also restart the MARCCD software. If this does not occur or ProDC fails to connect to the MAR control software you can manually exit from the MAR control software on bm16ccd by entering in file pull-down menu and selecting exit. If this fails you can kill the mar control software as decribed for ProDc: eg. type  ps -ef | grep -i marccd in a contol window on xbm16ctrl and find the process numbers then kill proc_number for all the processes found.
7. Restart ProDC from xbm16ctrl the detector software should automatically restart.
8. If this fails or ProDC starts but the MAR software in bm16ccdpx does not reinitialize then logout of xbm16ctrl and bm16ccdpx and log back in then restart ProDC from xbm16ctrl. 
9.  If all this fails to restart things you can try the logout/login cycle once more then before calling your local contact.

Problems doing an automated edge scan

Did the macro stop before doing the scan? The most likely cause is the procedure did not find an appropriate attenuation factor and it will probably write out a message stating this. Otherwise please check the following in order...Check that the fluorescence detector has moved into position, then check the beam intensity in the storage ring. Are you sure you have a heavy atom  in your sample ? If so then is your sample very small? If this is the case then you can carryout a scan manually:

1. Set the energy above the edge in question (e.g. +50-100eV above theoretical edge) and type QuickAlignment in the PX window.
2. In PX open the safety shutter px> shopen
3. Open the fast shutter px> open_ms_shutter
4. Start MCA px>mcaacq
5. Check the counts on the detector ....if you had problems with attenuation in all likelihood the signal is so small that you do not need attenuation and hence you should continue from point 7 below.
6. But if it is greater than 5 x 104 then insert attenuation until the counts are less than 2000
7. Perform an energy scan by typing px> energy_scan < element > < edge > e.g. for Selenium this would be px> energy_scan Se K 1 (the number 1 tells SPEC not to attempt to set the attenuation automatically) If all this fails and you are certain that you have incorporated an anomalous scatterer, contact your LC. If it is too late to do this then you could just collect an unoptimised SAD dataset above the edge that you believe to be present (+50 -100 eV above.

Adding an absortion edge to the MAD energies window

If an absorption edge is not in the MAD energies list it can be added via the Settings menu in ProDC as decribed below.

1. Under the Commands menu select Settings.
2. Click on the MAD options.A new window will appear containing the available MAD edges box
3. Type in the element and edge in the following format, e.g for Tantalum L3-edge type; {Ta L} Note: the curly brackets are important and there should be a single space between the element and the edge.
4. Click on Save then Close
5. Then close and reopen the MAD energies window.

MCA hung during a fluorescence scan

Very occassionally the MCA device server hangs during or before a scan (note there is normally a short delay between the 2nd and 3rd counts during all scans). If this happens you will need to restart the device server. The first thing to try is to type reconfig in the PX window on xbm16ctrl. If this is not successful, you should contact your local contact who will restart the BLISS device servers. Also check here for more info on the Roentek.

Magic Commands

Here are some magic commmands that may help solve a number of problems:
a) type reconfig in the spec sessions. You can type this as many times as you wish. Twice is often a good number.
b) type resetup in the spec sessions. You can type this as many times as you wish. Once is usually sufficient.
c) hit return in the spec sessions.
d) type initsamplevideoglobals in the control hutch spec session and close and restart the sample video software running on ybm16ctrl to the left of the beamline control pc (try this only if you have restarted spec from fresh).

Device Servers

A Device Server is the interface between a piece of hardware and the software used to run it. The majority of DSs run on the main Linux control PC (bm16ctrl)

Device Servers running on  bm16ctrl:

Device Server Errors

When an error occurs due to a device server, the error message itself points you to which device server is causing the problem. This information is contained in the text between quotation marks in the error message, for example;

e.g. 1) Can't import "d16/MaxeVpaps".
Device has not been fully imported yet, (hint: start the device server) (8).
       2) esrf_io() server error.
Error on "d16/wagods/wc" (hint:check the module hardware)(52).
       3)Error moving motor on motor 5, unit 4, "gonioz".

Restarting a Device Server

To check device server status, open an xterm on the computer on xbm16ctrl and type:

> bliss_dserver status

You will see something like...

Serialds: Serial1_Exp cryo bm16ctrl
Wagods: d16
MaxeVpapds: MaxeVpap_00 MaxeVpap_01 MaxeVpap_02 MaxeVpap_03 MaxeVpap_04 MaxeVpap_10 MaxeVpap_11 MaxeVpap_12 MaxeVpap_13 MaxeVpap_14 MaxeVpap_15 MaxeVpap_16
Hook: d16
Vct6Card: Vct6_0

To stop and restart a DS, for example, the CryoSpy type

> bliss_dserver stop CryoSpyds
> bliss_dserver start CryoSpyds

or

> bliss_dserver restart CryoSpyds

If you want to restart all DS type

> bliss_dserver restart all

REMEMBER : Any time you restart a device server, WHICHEVER one it is, remember to do a "reconfig" in any Spec session you work with (PX, OPTICS, SLITS,...). Otherwise Spec doesn't know that the DS has been restarted!

You may sometimes also need to restart the data collection GUI (e.g. if falconDS is restarted).

Cannot open the Front End

1. The machine is not in User Mode. Check with the EHO (x2525) or wait until the machine is back in USM.
2. The optics hutch has not been searched and interlocked. Go to optics hutch start the search (green button on PSS outside the hutch) enter into the hutch check noone is there and press the 2 green buttons as you do in the Experimental hutch (press the one furthest away 1st). Then close the door and press the search complete button on the PSS.
3. One or more of the vacuum valves in the optics hutch are closed. Call your LC! 

Beamstop Misaligned

Symptoms of this are :

i) the diffraction image shows a either a dark line in the center of the detector or a bright red line

ii) rings are visible on the diffraction image.

1) Check the beamsize using the command wm s1H s1V s2H s2V in the PX spec session on xbm16ctrl if the beam is larger than you expect (ie it is usually 0.2 x 0.2) then type gap_slits 0.1 or 0.2 to set the beam to 100 or 200 microns squared

2) Move the beamstop to the In position which should be bstopZ 0, bstopY 0 using either the beamstop position boxes in ProDc or MxCuBe or by moving the motors from the PX SPEC session. (see here for more on this)

3) If this doesnt work type beamStopAlignment in the PX window and a macro will be launched to automatically align the beam stop

4) If you have tried all this and are still not happy with the position of the beamstop -call your LC as it has probably been knocked out of position.