Troubleshooting and temporary procedures

The following sections list the solutions to the most common problems encountered by users, including indications on how to deal with present bugs or inefficiencies in the code. The records are sorted according to the main operation areas in which the problems arise.

Note

Users are advised to read these “hints” at the beginning of the session and before attempting (possibly unnecessary) heavy-handed operations on the system.

Setup

PROBLEM:

• The initial setup fails, but it is difficult to assess what goes wrong.

Instead of using the overall setup commands, give in the operatorInput the individual commands which deal with the different sub-systems, so that it is easier to identify the misbehaving element.

For example, the setupCCC command can be substituted by (the actual receiversMode code to be used depends on the desired setup):

> antennaReset
> antennaSetup=SEC
> servoSetup=CCC
> receiversSetup=CCC
> initialize=CCC
> device=0
> calOff

For other receivers, the codes of course vary.

Schedules

PROBLEM:

• I’ve performed cross-scans in order to fine-tune the pointing, but the measured offsets are not actually applied to the following acquisitions

System offsets, such as the ones measured with a Point acquisition, sum up to the ones indicated inside schedules ONLY if they are expressed in the same coordinate frame. This means that, if you perform observations using EQ offsets, also the fine-pointing cross-scans must be carried out in the EQ frame. The same holds for HOR scans. If there is a frame mismatch, the system offsets are automatically rejected (bug under fixing).

PROBLEM:

• I’ve launched a surely correct schedule, but parts of the system crashed.

Pay attention to the syntax, you might have inserted unwanted characters like an extra “ / ”: the startSchedule command must be either given as:

> startSchedule=euser/[schedname].scd,[N]

or, as long as euser is the only available user, as:

> startSchedule=[schedname].scd,[N]