Hi all,

I seem to be having some trouble with Athena crashing during the reconstruction step for some of my data when doing PCA analysis, and was wondering if anyone might have some insight. I I have attached a project file with the spectra in question (I realize they probably aren't normalized as well as they could be) and the dathena.log file, which is similar to Dr. Calvin's reported error log, aside from the PATH information. However, this is not an issue with Parallels, as I am using a 64 bit version of Windows 7.

Here, the issue I have is when reconstructing any of the files starting with TMF08-03 (in the attached "Combined - tailings.prj" project file). I am able to reconstruct all of the TMF08-01 files, and I have also successfully tried PCA/reconstruction on the files from the Au cyanobacteria example, so I do not believe it is an issue with my computer. To the extent that it may be an error with the TMF08-03 files, I have tried to re-import/re-work all the data, but this does not solve the problem, so it does not seems like the data itself is to blame. Perhaps the file names are presenting issues for Athena? (i.e. it might be confused if it is a standard or a sample?)

Any help on this issue is greatly appreciated. I apologize in advance for any omitted information or poor error reporting on my part, and thank you for your patience and support with this issue.

Cheers!

John

On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 4:17 PM, Erik Farquhar <efarq@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi Scott,

I had no problems doing reconstruction of data on two different machines running Windows 8 and DAthena 0.9.17. I used Bruce's gold cyanobacteria example and followed the sequence of operations shown in the PCA section of the Athena Users' Guide (http://bruceravel.github.io/demeter/aug/analysis/pca.html). That would seem to point to something quirky about Parallels.

Erik

From: Scott Calvin <scalvin@sarahlawrence.edu>
To: XAFS Analysis using Ifeffit <ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 12:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Ifeffit] DAthena crashes when reconstructing data from PCA

Hi Bruce and Others,

I've tried some follow-up troubleshooting.

The problem does not occur on another laptop with Windows 7 installed, so it appears to fall under some variation of your "possibility #1." I thought perhaps it might be related to some kind of resource problem (e.g. memory allocation), so I played around with giving my Parallels virtual machine various amounts of memory, processing power, etc., but nothing changed the behavior.

I would be interested to know from other people on the list if they have gotten the reconstruction of data from PCA to work under Windows 8 (I don't have another Windows 8 machine readily available to test it on). That would help narrow down whether the issue is a general one with that OS, or whether it's something more quirky having to do with the environment I'm using.

--Scott Calvin
Sarah Lawrence College

On Jun 14, 2013, at 9:18 AM, Bruce Ravel <bravel@bnl.gov> wrote:

> On 06/11/2013 09:25 PM, Scott Calvin wrote:
>
>> Athena is crashing every time I try to "Reconstruct Data" in the PCA
>> dialog. It doesn't seem to matter what data I use, or what space I'm
>> working in (mu or chi), or how many components I use in the
>> reconstruction.
>
>> I'm using Demeter 0.9.17 with Ifeffit 1.2.11d, under Windows 8
>> running in Parallels 8 running under OS 10.8.4 on a MacBook Pro.
>
>> The log file for the latest crash is below. If you'd like a project
>> file too, let me know, but it happens, e.g., with the gold
>> cyanobacteria project file, and with every data set I've tried.
>
>
> Hi Scott,
>
> I do not see this behavior on any of my computers (which include
> native WinXp and Win7 machines and linux) and I am having trouble
> guessing from the log file you attached a possible cause of the
> problem.
>
> Possibility #1: you are using a configuration that I cannot test. I
> have never used Parallels and none of my computers are running Windows
> 8. I'd be surprised if either is the cause of the problem, though.
> It seems surprising that Athena would get that deeply into its
> operations before running into a platform-related problem. That said,
> I'd be interested to know if you see this on a native Win7 or WinXP
> machine.
>
> Possibility #2: you have figured out some combination of mouse clicks
> and button presses that I have never tested. The problem you are
> seeing is that the group considered current (i.e. the one that should
> be the target of the reconstruction) has become unset. Typically,
> when you click on an item in the group list, Athena will assign that
> as the current data set. It will then run a simple test to see if it
> was among the data groups included in the PCA decomposition. If so,
> the "reconstruct" button is enabled. If not, the TT button is
> enabled.
>
> I cannot find a compbination of events that leaves me in a state that
> unsets this, resulting in your stack trace. So without further
> instruction, I don't know how to go about solving the problem.
>
> B

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John Hayes

The Grosvenor Group

Dept. of Chemistry

University of Saskatchewan

“Somebody told me it was frightening how much topsoil we are losing each year, but I told that story around the campfire and nobody got scared.”