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Troubleshooting help viewing AFM force curve file

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Heather Hayenga posted on Tue, Apr 5 2011 5:29 PM

To whom it may concern,
I moved some files (containing force curve data) from the capture folder to a user folder (on the E drive) the files lost there ability to be viewed in Nanoscope. The files still contain the data (b/c we can process them) but for some reason I can not view them in Nanoscope. Do you have any suggestions why this may be so? If you email me I can send you one of the files. The opertating system I am using is Windows NT. The version of Nanoscope software I am using is 5. 

Any help you can provide on this matter is helpful.
Thank you,
-Heather

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Top 25 Contributor
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HI Heather,

We've already had this problem many times....

A simple solution consists to modify the .exe file of the nanoscope program. Usually, it's "Z.exe", change it in "Z.exe -v" and you should be able to open the corrupted files, at least it works here. Moreover, after to open the file with the modified filename, you will able to open those files in any version of the N.anoscope software.

I hope it will help you

Guillaume

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Top 25 Contributor
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To complete my suggestion:

You have to do this from from th shortcut of the software on your desktop for example. Right click on the shortcut, select properties on change the target of the shorcut in "...\Z.exe -v" as illustrated (sorry it's in french...)

 

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Top 500 Contributor
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Thank you Guillaume,

I have tried to do your suggestion but a problem with shortcut error pops up saying: The name '....\Z.exe -z' specified in the Target box is not valid. Make sure the path and file name are correct.

I also tried changing the target name of the shortcut from "....Z.exe" to "...Z.exe" -v  this opened up not only the newer version of Nanoscope but also the older version. I tried opening one of the force curves files in both of the versions and still no luck. Force curves I have aquired awhile back are able to open in both programs though...so the programs are working.... just not the recent force curve files.

Any other suggestions?

Thank you,

-Heather 

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Top 25 Contributor
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ok, could you say me which version of nanoscope are you using ? (for the offline analysis and online capture, both)

maybe send me one of those files (guillaume.andre [at] uclouvain.be

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Top 25 Contributor
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If I remember correctly, this problem in version 5 is overcome by OPENING the files in the analysis part of the online software (i.e. on the machine you collected them on). After this, they can be moved elsewhere and analysed. Gosh, I remember the fun of opening 100´s of forces curves, one at at a time in the DOS program...

I don't know if you can move them BACK to that machine and then do it...

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Bruker Employee

Hi Heather,

The issue that Peter and Guillaume have been attempting to help you with occurs in older versions of Nanoscope when the a file has been collected, but never opened offline with Nanoscope.  When the file was initially opened, the header was converted from binary to ASCII.  Once the conversion is done, any newer version of Nanoscope or Nanoscope Analysis or third party analysis programs can read the file.  Running Nanoscope with "Z.exe -v" causes the version checking to be ignored so that the conversion can be done with more recent versions of Nanoscope.

Based on your description of the problem that you are having, I'm not positive that this is the issue.  Could you provide one of your files?  

I can be reached at bede dot pittenger at bruker dash nano dot com.

Thanks,

--Bede

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