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EXPGUI Informational, Warning and Error Messages

This page contains additional information about various warning and error screens that may occur in EXPGUI as well as descriptions for a number of utility functions.

Informational Messages

File has been modified...

This message occurs when EXPGUI detects that the experiment file has been changed by another program. (EXPGUI only tracks the file modification date, so that the file could have been opened for writing, but no actual changes were made.) This can be normal behavior -- for example after a refinement cycle has been run, or this can signal a problem, such as two people or sessions trying to edit the same .EXP file. This warning is made because a choice must be made: to keep the version currently displayed in EXPGUI, or to use the new version written by the other program. On UNIX, this message can be avoided by setting the Autoupdate EXP flag to "on" causes .EXP files to be loaded automatically after GSAS programs are run, eliminating most occurrences where this message is displayed, but with the disadvantage that a bad refinement run can not be reversed easily.
  • If you choose to keep the currently displayed version and make changes and then save the file, either by using the File/Save menu option or by running a GSAS program, the new version just written will be lost, if any changes are made in EXPGUI and are then saved. This can be useful -- to discard the results of a refinement that has gone awry -- but in other cases may not be desirable.
  • If you opt to load the new .EXP file, by pressing "Load new", the version currently displayed in the EXPGUI window will be lost. This is normally what you will want to do, but if you unsure, you can select "Continue with old", use File/Save As to save the version in EXPGUI and then use "EXPNAM" to load the new version, so they can be compared.
If changes have been made to the experiment file in EXPGUI since it was last saved, and the file is changed by an external program, the message "you have made changes to this version" is added and a third button, "Save edited version", is shown. Under this circumstance, the usual action, pressing "Load new" could result in valuable changes being lost. Pressing "Save edited version" results brings you to the File/"Save as" menu, where the modified version of the experiment file in EXPGUI can be saved under a new name.

Please wait while GSAS program finishes...

A window labeled "Please wait while GSAS program finishes." If a problem occurs, close the DOS box and press the "Continue" button is created in Windows-9x while GSAS programs are run. As this window is created, a "lock" file (expgui.lck) is also created. When the DOS batch file running the GSAS program completes, this file is deleted. The EXPGUI process waits until the expgui.lck lock file is deleted. Should the DOS process crash before the file is deleted, the "Continue" button can be pressed. This causes EXPGUI to continue and deletes the lock file.

Input a value for the title

A dialog with "Enter a value for the title for experiment..." appears when a new experiment is created. Note that this title can be edited later on the Least Squares Control Page.

Choose CIF Block

When coordinates/cell parameters are read from a CIF, all blocks in the file are read. If more than block containing coordinates is found, a message saying "More than one block in CIF contains coordinates. Select the block to use." One must then select one of these blocks from the list of blocks. The blocks with coordinates are listed, both numbered and with the block (data_) name. The "CIF Browser" button can be pressed to view the data names and their values for each block.

Open Experiment File

The Open Experiment windows is displayed to select a experiment file to read or write, as well as a directory to use. When the message at the top reads "Select an experiment file to read" either an existing experiment file should be selected, or a new name may be typed in at the box at the bottom to enter a name manually. If the file is not found, you will be warned and given the option of creating a new experiment with that name. When the message at the top reads "Select an experiment file to create", typically after a "Save as" command, the directory may be changed, but typically a file name will be typed into the bottom box. If the file exists, you will be warned before the file is overwritten and you will have the option to enter a different file name.

Note that the files in the list can be sorted alphabetically or can be sorted by the date the experiment file was last modified, according to the checkbuttons to the upper right.

The "Include Archived Files" checkbox allows archive files named .Onn to be read (see the archive option). See the Load Archived File, below, for further discussion.


Load Archived File

When a archived experiment file is read, the "Load Archived File" window is displayed to select the name to be used for the experiment. There are two choices. One is to reuse existing name. This will cause the current version of the experiment file to be archived so that it is not lost. The selected [older] archived version will then be read and will be saved as the latest version of the experiment file. The other option is to save the experiment under a new name.

Exclude Data...
Delete Region...

This message is shown before adding or deleting an excluded region using EXCLEDT to confirm an action. See the discussion on Adding Regions in EXCLEDT. Note that this confirmation message can be eliminated if desired, (see the EXCLEDT Options menu item Prompt on add/del.)

The upper (lower) limit has changed...
The excluded regions have changed...

This message is shown if the upper data limit is raised (or d-min ls lowered) so that EXCLEDT can display the data that have been added. It is also shown when EXCLEDT exits so that the new data limits can be processed. GENLES will not run properly until POWPREF is run.

The upper (lower) data point...

This message is shown when the upper data limit (lower d-min limit) well outside the range of data. It is probably best to accept this suggestion. See the discussion on data limits in the EXCLEDT web page for more information.

You have changed histogram flags...

This message is shown after changing histogram flags so that a different set of histograms will be included or excluded in a refinement. GENLES will not run properly until POWPREF is run.

Warning Messages


Abandoning Constraint Editing

If the "Cancel Changes" button is pressed when a profile or atom constraint is being edited or created, a message saying "Do you want to lose any changes made to this constraint?" is displayed, even if no changes have been made to the constraint. Changes are recorded only when the "Save" button is pressed.

File ... does not exist in ...

When an attempt is made to open a file that does not already exists, for example when the EXPNAM command is used, this warning is displayed. The answer can be "Select other" or "Create", where "Select other" will return you to a file selection dialog and "Create" will create a new dialog with this name.

File ... already exists in ... OK to overwrite?

When an attempt is made to using the File/"Save As" command to write the current experiment file with a new name, but a file with the newly specified name already exists, this message is displayed. Choose "Select other" to specify a different file name or "Overwrite" to use this name in which case the older file is replaced.

A similar warning will occur in UNIX when converting files. If the intended output file already exists, this message is displayed. Choose "Cancel" to specify a different file name or "Overwrite" to use this name in which case the older file is replaced. This message can be seen in Windows when converting files, for slightly different reasons. When files are converted, the converted file keeps the same name as the original version. However, th original file is renamed to XXXX.ord, where XXXX.YYY is the original file name. If a file named XXXX.ord already exists, this message is displayed.


No histograms are ready to plot. Run GENLES and try again.

This happens when LIVEPLOT is run but no valid histograms are available to plot. LIVEPLOT can plot histograms only when they have been processed by both POWPREF and GENLES.

Error reading localconfig or .gsas_config:

This happens when an invalid command is encountered in files localconfig, ~/.gsas_config or c:\gsas.config. Some or all of the commands in these files will be skipped over, but nothing serious wrong will likely result. Note that the localconfig file is located in the expgui directory (typically /home/gsas/expgui/localconfig or C:\gsas\expgui\localconfig) and the .gsas_config or gsas.config file is located in your home directory in UNIX or c:\ in Windows. If you rename or move these files, the error should go away. At that point you can decide if you want to track the error down to retain your customizations.

You are attempting to run GENLES...:

The POWPREF program maps reflections to every data point. If you add/remove phases or histograms, or change the diffractometer constants, cell parameters, profile parameters, and so on, you need to run POWPREF before running GENLES. If EXPGUI catches you forgetting to do this, it reminds you. However, not all possible changes that would require POWPREF are caught.

Error processing Laue code:

The message "Error processing Laue code: XXXX Error in space group YYYY..." occurs when the Laue class for a space group could not be determined when editing unit cell constants. This is likely due to you entering an invalid space group or else a bug in EXPGUI in parsing the output from program SPACEGROUP. The former is more likely, but if you encounter a bug, please send it in, be sure to specify how where spaces were used in the string (e.g. "P 21 21 21" vs. "P21 21 21").

Error Messages


Unable to find file GRFONT.DAT...

The file grfont.dat is expected to be in the ...\gsas\fonts directory in DOS/Windows platforms and files grfont.dat and pgxwin_server are expected to be found in the .../gsas/pgl directory in UNIX. If these files cannot be found, GSAS will not be able to produce graphics in programs such as POWPLOT, RAWPLOT,... If GSAS and EXPGUI are correctly installed this error will not occur (see the installation notes for Windows and UNIX.

Sorry, file ... not found in ...

The specified input file was not found for conversion

Sorry, filenames must differ

For UNIX file conversions, the input and output file names must be different. You have specified the same name twice.

Unable to rename XXXXX.LST

This message is displayed if the GSAS .LST file could not be renamed prior to running DISAGL in a separate window. On Windows it appears that LSTVIEW can prevent EXPGUI from renaming the .LST file. Either exit LSTVIEW while running DISAGL or reset the DISAGL option DISAGL so that output goes to the .LST file.

You must upgrade the EXPTOOL program...

The original version of the EXPTOOL program used within EXPGUI to add histograms does not work with dummy histograms. Versions of GSAS distributed prior to October 2001 do not contain this updated routine. A more recent version of the EXPTOOL program can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.ncnr.nist.gov/pub/cryst/gsas/exe_win/, ftp://ftp.ncnr.nist.gov/pub/cryst/gsas/exe_linux/ or ftp://ftp.ncnr.nist.gov/pub/cryst/gsas/exe_sgi/. Alternately, EXPEDT can be used to add dummy histograms.

Error running TCLDUMP (LIVEPLOT or BKGEDIT)

The program TCLDUMP (or program HSTDMP if TCLDUMP is not found) is used to read the binary expnam.Pxx and expnam.Rxx files produced by POWPREF and GENLES so that refinement results can be plotted. If there is an error reading these files, an error message is produced reading "There was an error running the TCLDUMP program..." and the text of the error message reads something like "Invalid command name 'FORTRAN'". The most common reason for this error is that the expnam.Pxx and expnam.Rxx files do not exist (because you have not run POWPREF or have moved/renamed the .EXP file. It is possible, but less common for this error to occur if TCLDUMP tries to read files produced by an older version of GSAS (since the internal format of the binary files sometimes changes). If you see this message, run POWPREF & GENLES to force these files to be written. If the GSAS results can be plotted in POWPLOT, but not in LIVEPLOT or BKGEDIT, please contact Brian Toby at Brian.Toby@NIST.GOV.

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Comments, corrections or questions: crystal@NIST.gov
Last modified 28-September-2004
$Revision: 1.14 $ $Date: 2003/05/22 22:05:22 $