Yesterday, Tito Jankowski sent me an email requesting to see the log files from the OpenPCR machine. Part of the software function is to record the programs used and possibly error reports (I didn’t ask too much in this regard). Immediately I noticed something interesting. According to Windows XP, the log files did not exist on the computer!

OpenPCR calls saved programs from a directory hidden in the logged in user’s application directory. If there are no files in this directory then you should have no saved programs. Interestingly enough there were saved programs, but the files were no where to be found. I tried a Windows search on the whole computer and nothing could be turned up. Somehow the machine was calling files that either didn’t exist or were extra hidden.

I ran some tests to try and repeat the glitches from my last report. I was able to repeat the hold screen glitch (shown in the featured image at the top of the page), I was able to repeat the crash and restart on completion (which interestingly only happened in the saved program), and I was able to repeat the error that wouldn’t allow OpenPCR to run immediately after a completed program.

Then I remembered that I had initially installed the OpenPCR software on the lab’s laptop (that I mostly monopolize for my computing pleasures). I actually found the log files from the initial setup on that computer and Tito suggested I run the same tests on the laptop to generate the errors (he was convinced that the glitches were a hardware malfunction).

Turns out, NONE of those errors were repeatable on the laptop! In fact every error I had from my previous tests with OpenPCR did not occur, and every trial I ran went swimmingly. I did not receive the glitch shown above, I was able to start a reaction immediately after a completed reaction, and the restart crash did not happen. As of now it appears that all the problems were caused by the other computer to which OpenPCR was tethered.

So I want to thank Tito for his support throughout the afternoon yesterday and his suggestions on how to possibly fix the errors. When all looked bleak, a simple last minute trial ended up being the solution. Chalk this up as a win for open science, and open notebook science!

Update: I thought it would be fun to show you my actual notes of the experiments which are usually short enough so that I can recall what I did in more detail for posting here as soon as possible.

It should be noted that this isn’t all the notes from my experiment, but just the ones that I definitely wanted to remember in detail. The remainder are just upwards of the frame edge but the earlier tests were an identical repeat of the tests shown under the page separation that I drew.