Clarity discussion forum

I have been using the same clarity program (version 2.4.1.77) for the past three years with no real problems, but last week I attempted to activate the chromatography software to gather data and I recieved a warning that the USB key could not be found. The key was in the same spot it had been for the last three years. I attempted loading clarity on two separate computers with the same warning while the key was in a working USB in both computers. I tried to reinstall the drivers controlling the hardware key. I even contacted Debra Cree (your US representative) and she was kind enough to send a new key, which also did not work. I tried uninstalling Clarity then reinstalling using the new key with no success as well. Do you have a good idea why this might be happening and can you give me some advice on how to deal with this current problem? As much information as you might have would be appreciated beyond measure.

Thank you for your time,
Wade Wimer
Head Analyst, Quicksilver Scientific LLC

Dear Wade,

is the problem with the replacement key still the HW key not found or is there another error message? Could be

Wrong serial number - as replacement key was probably sent in Trial mode, it is necessary to delete the old user code stored in the Clarity.sno file (edit it using Notepad and delete the user code after the equal sign)

Trial Expired – the trial mode is blocked for the key, ask Debra for another one

HW key not found – check the diode in the key, check the key with another computer.

Please note, the new key requires Clarity version 2.6 and higher, it will not work with 2.4.1 you used originally. Update is available from our web pages.

Ivan,
Your advice worked perfectly-the problem was that we were still trying to use our User Code and not updating to the newest version of clarity. We have the capability to run samples now. There is one more concern, however, that I wanted to bring to your attention involving the new version of clarity:
At my company, chromatograms are usually at least 1000 minutes in length. We ran such a chromatogram two days ago and let our analysis machine run automated overnight. When I returned in the morning, a strange situation had occured. At some point during the night, the chromatogram took the final 300 minutes of the chromatogram and made exact copies of those final 300 minutes in the previous 700 minutes. The visual result was a set of data that repeated exactly around 3.5 times. It had appeared that all of the data that had been gathered for the first 700 minutes of the experiment had been lost. To make sure, I took a "snapshot" of the gathered data. When the data was transfered from the "Data Aquisition" window to the "Chromatogram Window," all of the lost data was suddenly in its place-in the "Chromatogram Window." The "Data Aquisition" window was still incorrect. Have you heard of this before? This never happened in Clarity 2.4, and the problem is not detrimental thus far since we were able to recover our data. However, we would like to find a way to prevent this happening in the future. Thank you again for all of your help for us so far.

Wade

Dear Wade,
the described behavior is caused by displaying the data in the Data Acquisition not from the raw data gathered, but from a buffer. This buffer's length is, as it seems, only 300 minutes.
There is no way how this behavior could damage gathered data, but I take it as granted that for you it is a nuissance. We will look into the matter further in some of the further releases of Clarity (1000 min analyses are not too common and the solution will most probably need major redesign of the Clarity code.)

Best Regards,
Daniel Mentlik

Issued an internal bug tracking number ID: 33544

Thanks Daniel. Yes the problem is only a minor nuissance as far as I can tell, but I wasn't totally sure. The fact that we had never seen it with Clarity 2.4 also gave me pause. If it poses any more of a problem, I will let you know, but I doubt that it will. Thank you for your time.
Wade