Problems with automated analysis and license breakdown?

Question

We are running long term tests with multiple GC analysis, automatically controlled from LabVIEW via ActiveX communication with OpenLab EZChrom.

We recently had an event in the EZChrom software creating problems;

suddenly midway through the tests, the analysis started to fail. The communication seemed to fail,

resulting in an error that suggested OpenLab couldn’t locate its core license. The problem was solved by entering off-line EZChrom software to copy license, erase license and ultimately re-paste license. Communication returned, and the test could continue.

Anybody seen these strange things that the license system seems to break down during testing ?

Rather hopeless bug to fight with......

Martin

ryoboyle · Accepted Answer

Thanks for the quick reply. The behavior you are describing does not really make sense to me. Licensing is only checked when the instrument session is launched, so if you lose connection to the license server or the license somehow becomes corrupt like you're describing it should not cause a sequence to abort. There is an update for A.04.09 that makes some changes to the Automation Tool Kit which I assume is what you are using to interface to EZChrom with, but once the sequence is submitted the ATK would not really be involved while it is acquiring. The only thing that I can think of is that there was a network disruption that occurred during the sequence which caused it to abort. This might have also caused you to lose communication to the license server temporarily which would explain the license error you referred to. Without doing an in depth analysis of your logs I cannot say anything more conclusive. You might want to reach out to your local support ( Contact Us | Agilent ) if you would like someone to review the logs and investigate further. If this is a client/server installation then you can also submit a Lab Informatics ticket request support.