Troubleshooting

Owned by MX Cluster (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Apr 15, 2024 by AS MX Wiki
3 min read

 

 

Having problems with the beamline?

~

If you are having trouble during an experiment, please contact:

~

Within office hours (9am - 5pm) - Your support scientist. Their details can be found in your ‘Experiment Ready’ email.

Outside of office hours - The operators in the control room. +61 434 600 225

~

Your friendly beamline scientists and operators are here to help, but we’ve built a page of common problems and solutions here too.

 

 

 

I have no beam!

It’s not much of a beamline without a beam.

Check the folllowing:

  • Has the facility lost beam? Check the facility status monitor in Quick Access → Facility Status Monitor. Technical issues can cause the beam to be lost.

  • Is the hutch closed and locked? If you’re onsite, make sure you’ve done a search and secure.

  • Are the mono shutters open? Go to the Shutter Flux GUI and make sure the shutters are set to ‘open’. If you’re onsite, check the stack lamps on the hutch; the red light indicates open shutters.

  • Can you see the blue beam on the beam camera? If you can’t see it, check that the endstation shutters are open. Also check the facility status monitor.

 

The robot won’t respond!

At MX, we like our robots to do as they’re told.

If you’re trying to mount or dismount and the robot won’t respond, check the following:

  • Is the robot in a 'heat and dry cycle'? These happen periodically to keep the tongs from accumulating moisture and freezing shut. The bar on the bottom of the Collection GUI will indicate when the next cycle is. Wait for the robot to finish and you will get control back

  • Are you signed in as the ‘active’ user? Check the top right of the Robot Control GUI. If you’re sharing the beamline with remote colleagues, remember only one person can be ‘active’ at a time.

  • Have you recently opened the hutch door? The robot will need to be initiated again by staff. Contact your support scientist.

I’ve closed an important window!

Here is a list of commonly needed GUIs and how to open them:

  • Robot Controls → Icon in the PyPanel (bottom left of the main control screen) or this url:

  • Shutter Flux → Icon in the PyPanel

  • Collection → Icon in the PyPanel

  • List of pucks in the robot dewar → type ‘pucks/mx1' or ‘pucks/mx2’ into a browser address bar

  • Processing → type ‘processing/processing’ into the browser address bar

  • Sample camera → For centering, go to the Sample tab in the Robot Controls GUI.

  • MAD scans → type ‘madscan:4000’ in a browser

 

My data looks awful!

It wouldn’t be science without some disappointing results.

Problem

Try…

Problem

Try…

No visible diffraction on ADXV viewer

Check if you can see the shadow of the beamstop on your frames. If not, you might not have beam. Refer to ‘I have no beam!’ above.

My CX data doesn’t index

Try reprocessing with Brute and without weak.

I have heavy ice rings

Revisit your crystal freezing technique. Are you snap freezing in a humid environment, eg QLD, indoor swimming pool, lab cold room? Blowing dry nitrogen across your liquid nitrogen for snap freezing can mitigate some humidity problems.

 

I can’t log in remotely!

If you are remotely accessing the beamlines, check the following:

  • Are you using the correct password? Refer to the ‘Experiment Ready’ email. The ** Remote Access ** section will give you aswebmx login details and your experiment credentials.

  • Are you the first user in your experiment to try and log in remotely? Remote access needs to be set up by your support scientist. Contact your support scientist.

ADXV is not auto-updating!

Try closing ADXV and opening it again. It should updated when the next dataset/screening/rastering is collected.

If you are remotely accessing the beamlines, are you using the …VNC_ADXV window?