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IRCAM3 manual
Troubleshooting: Common Errors and Recovery from Them
This page gives a list of the more common errors experienced with IRCAM.
A Diagnostics Guide is also available, for internal use only, from
the UKIRT reference page . If all else fails, the observers should exit
ORACOM, the TSS should run down the camera, log
off IRTCON, and then log on and bring up the instrument again. This often
clears up and restarts troubled processes. The errors are listed in
approximate order of how commonly they are seen at the telescope.
BDS Errors
Under the ORAC system the first indication of a BDS error will
be the following error message on the observer's OM screen:
The will also be error messages in the xterm from which oracom was launched
on the observers side:
BDS_CORE_SERVER> ERROR: Channel comms timed out on tag receive
BDS_COMPLETE> Error after ackchk
or
WFG_INTEGRATE> bad status after BDS GO
!! AIM> After INTEGRATE TASK_DONE No translation for System status value
! 148013867
!! Movie aborted after failure
BDS_ERRCHK> Error while sending GO
To recover, the TSS goes up the menus to the "Engineering" menu, go into
"ALICE Engineering", and "Kill and Reload OCCAM". The pinkish
ALICE screen will disappear and return. You can then hit all the OK
buttons on any OM error messages on both the observers and the TSS side.
The observer should then hit stopASAP, move the highlight back up a line
to the "set object" or "set dark" preceding the failed observation, then
hit run-from-highlight, and the missing observation will be repeated.
(If you simply hit continue you will lose the last data frame and frame number.
You can recover in the DR by using the "- skip" option. ) BE CAREFUL: about half
the time the OM stops saving data after a BDS error so watch for this and if
there's a problem run the OM down and up.
BDS errors tend to occur when you are taking data at fast rates.
If your exposures are 1 second or less, try using STARE instead
of ND_STARE. Or cut down on the number of coadds.
Filter Detent Errors
It is common for the camera to have to hunt for the filter position, and
you will see a message something like:
Filter found after 20 steps
Ignore searches at the level of about 20 steps and continue taking data.
However if the filter is still not found after a couple of searches, or if
the number of steps is large, then go to the
"Engineering" menu and datum the filter wheels.
Negative Countdowns
Have patience if you see the exposure countdown go to negative counts of a
few seconds, as there are overheads associated with every read, but if it
gets to say -50 then you're probably in trouble. You can try the pf1 or pf4
keys to get out, but usually the only way out is a control-c. To ensure
all processes are properly killed and restarted, log completely off of IRTCON,
log on, and bring back up IRCAM3_DEV.
IEEE Errors
On occasion the IEEE Bus process that controls the camera motors has
to be restarted. You will see an error something like:
!! IEEE error number 173640044
! IEEE error: IEEE-F-IVBUSNR, Bus number out of range or not active
Run down the camera and in a Decterm window type:
START_IEEE_BUS_4
Run the camera back up again.
High Dark Current
On occasion the first measurement of dark current gives a slightly high
value. Run array tests again. If the value is still high check the
instrument temperatures and if they are high call Mike Wagner or Sandy
Leggett.
Frames Not Offsetting
On occasion the instrument and telescope lose communication and you will
see that your jittered frames are not in fact offset. Check the OM screen
says "Telescope: connected", if it does check the instrument engineering
screens for communication flags. If the OM side says disconnected run
the OM down and up.
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