GC and MS no signal collected !!!@@

Discussions about GC-MS, LC-MS, LC-FTIR, and other "coupled" analytical techniques.

17 posts Page 1 of 2
Hi, I have a problem with GC-MS. When I run sample, there was no GC and MS signal collected.
I tried to tune the MS, filament seems OK, and MS tunes well. Once start injection, MS loaded method, and showed running the method, but simply no TIC. Column no problem. when I tried to see the snapshot, no response.Thanks!
Does the Method have "use MS" selected?
Do you have free disk space where you are saving the data?

I have had people do this several times, keep trying to start their sequence and getting the error and I have them check their disk free space and it is only a few Kb left. It will allow the temp data file to be created but not saved, it will also cause it to not save results when you try to quantitate the samples.
The past is there to guide us into the future, not to dwell in.
Consumer Products Guy wrote:
Does the Method have "use MS" selected?


Thanks! Yes, I checked the method to make sure MS was used to collect data.
James_Ball wrote:
Do you have free disk space where you are saving the data?

I have had people do this several times, keep trying to start their sequence and getting the error and I have them check their disk free space and it is only a few Kb left. It will allow the temp data file to be created but not saved, it will also cause it to not save results when you try to quantitate the samples.



Thank you! Ok, I will check the if my space enough and let you know, but the problem is 1) GC run 4 samples without stop and no error message 2) it created data file but cannot open the file and nothing in the file 3) try to open the snapshot, it cannot be open 3) Chemstation was able to management MS tune, result is fine.
xenophobe2013 wrote:
James_Ball wrote:
Do you have free disk space where you are saving the data?

I have had people do this several times, keep trying to start their sequence and getting the error and I have them check their disk free space and it is only a few Kb left. It will allow the temp data file to be created but not saved, it will also cause it to not save results when you try to quantitate the samples.



Thank you! Ok, I will check the if my space enough and let you know, but the problem is 1) GC run 4 samples without stop and no error message 2) it created data file but cannot open the file and nothing in the file 3) try to open the snapshot, it cannot be open 3) Chemstation was able to management MS tune, result is fine.


I was having trouble opening a file this weekend, similar error. I found that I had tried to overwrite the file, but when the instrument saw another file was there it stopped, but it had already put a "TEMP.DAT" file in the directory. I could qedit the previous results still, but when exiting it would say there was no data in the file. Also look for a directory with the sample.x instead of sample.D, that can confuse the software if it has started a file but did not close it and make the .D
The past is there to guide us into the future, not to dwell in.
James_Ball wrote:
xenophobe2013 wrote:
James_Ball wrote:
Do you have free disk space where you are saving the data?

I have had people do this several times, keep trying to start their sequence and getting the error and I have them check their disk free space and it is only a few Kb left. It will allow the temp data file to be created but not saved, it will also cause it to not save results when you try to quantitate the samples.



Thank you! Ok, I will check the if my space enough and let you know, but the problem is 1) GC run 4 samples without stop and no error message 2) it created data file but cannot open the file and nothing in the file 3) try to open the snapshot, it cannot be open 3) Chemstation was able to management MS tune, result is fine.


I was having trouble opening a file this weekend, similar error. I found that I had tried to overwrite the file, but when the instrument saw another file was there it stopped, but it had already put a "TEMP.DAT" file in the directory. I could qedit the previous results still, but when exiting it would say there was no data in the file. Also look for a directory with the sample.x instead of sample.D, that can confuse the software if it has started a file but did not close it and make the .D


Thanks a lot :)
I checked, we still have like 80G free space and I rewrite the sequence using different names, but it still didn't response :(
Start with a fresh sequence. I know that when we still had an older Chemstation D version (can't remember which one) that if you used an old sequence file too many times, it would get confused at times. The symptom was failure at the point where the temp files are turned into .D files.
Is it a 5973C MSD? There's a quirk with the one I got 3 years ago. It happens every 90 or 100 days. The run starts normally and ends at the specified time, but there's an error message at the bottom:
"Neither GC nor MS data collected. Consult logbook." But the log book has no additional info.
The fix is to turn off and turn back on the Power button on the front of the MS.
Then it will happen again in 90 or 100 days...just repeat the process.

(I used to be concerned about turning off the MS, thinking the turbo pump should be allowed to wind down and come to a complete stop before re-starting. After many years, and surviving dozens of brief power outages during storms, now I just push the power button twice, less than a second apart. Has anyone reached the same conclusion about turning off and on the MS?)


xenophobe2013 wrote:
Hi, I have a problem with GC-MS. When I run sample, there was no GC and MS signal collected.
I tried to tune the MS, filament seems OK, and MS tunes well. Once start injection, MS loaded method, and showed running the method, but simply no TIC. Column no problem. when I tried to see the snapshot, no response.Thanks!
dhdh wrote:
Is it a 5973C MSD? There's a quirk with the one I got 3 years ago. It happens every 90 or 100 days. The run starts normally and ends at the specified time, but there's an error message at the bottom:
"Neither GC nor MS data collected. Consult logbook." But the log book has no additional info.
The fix is to turn off and turn back on the Power button on the front of the MS.
Then it will happen again in 90 or 100 days...just repeat the process.

(I used to be concerned about turning off the MS, thinking the turbo pump should be allowed to wind down and come to a complete stop before re-starting. After many years, and surviving dozens of brief power outages during storms, now I just push the power button twice, less than a second apart. Has anyone reached the same conclusion about turning off and on the MS?)


xenophobe2013 wrote:
Hi, I have a problem with GC-MS. When I run sample, there was no GC and MS signal collected.
I tried to tune the MS, filament seems OK, and MS tunes well. Once start injection, MS loaded method, and showed running the method, but simply no TIC. Column no problem. when I tried to see the snapshot, no response.Thanks!


We have had many of the quick power outages lasting a few seconds each over the years. For a while it was at least once a month. All of our turbos have lasted through them plus some soft restarts as you described and we just had the first one to die last month after running for about 12 years. I don't think it is as hard on the turbo to spin back up from 90-95% speed than it is from 0%, but I am just guessing.
The past is there to guide us into the future, not to dwell in.
dhdh wrote:
Is it a 5973C MSD? There's a quirk with the one I got 3 years ago. It happens every 90 or 100 days. The run starts normally and ends at the specified time, but there's an error message at the bottom:
"Neither GC nor MS data collected. Consult logbook." But the log book has no additional info.
The fix is to turn off and turn back on the Power button on the front of the MS.
Then it will happen again in 90 or 100 days...just repeat the process.

(I used to be concerned about turning off the MS, thinking the turbo pump should be allowed to wind down and come to a complete stop before re-starting. After many years, and surviving dozens of brief power outages during storms, now I just push the power button twice, less than a second apart. Has anyone reached the same conclusion about turning off and on the MS?)


xenophobe2013 wrote:
Hi, I have a problem with GC-MS. When I run sample, there was no GC and MS signal collected.
I tried to tune the MS, filament seems OK, and MS tunes well. Once start injection, MS loaded method, and showed running the method, but simply no TIC. Column no problem. when I tried to see the snapshot, no response.Thanks!


I also had the same problem yesterday with my 5975C MS and the power reset worked immediately for me.
:D
Same situation. MSD 5975С does not switch on after sample run was started (both manually and by ALS) - cathode filament doesn't burn. Both.
During manual tune and autotune everything is OK, both filaments are functional.
It seems like MSD doesn't receive START command (from GC or ALS) when RUN is started. Quick power reset by the main MSD switch is helpless.
RUN is going on smoothly, however. :D After it is interrupted or ended a message appears in LB "Neither GC nor MS data collected. Consult logbook." Logbook contains nothing.
A simple case. The REMOTE connector on the back of the GC was disconnected and the MSD did not receive a command to start.
Even though that cable may never move for years at a time and the atmosphere is clean, the cable can go bad suddenly. It happened to me recently on a 5975, exact same problems but replacing the remote cable with a new one fixed it.
The past is there to guide us into the future, not to dwell in.
Not sure which MS you are using, or which rev of software. I assume Agilent based on the previous responses.

You can see if the MS has actually turned on by monitoring the EM voltage. If you have EM voltage then your MS has received the start signal and your remote start cable is fine.

When you get sequence issues (as James described) you cannot merely change the name of the existing sequence. You must start with a new sequence; it is best to pull up the default (empty) sequence and re-enter all of your data. Make sure you don't end up accidentally entering a non-printing character in the names! That will definitely blow up your sequence. It is also best to go back into the directory and erase the previous (bad) sequence before you start.

Also, due to some flakiness with Chemstation and Windows you need to limit the number of files in a given folder. This normally isn't an issue since most people create a new folder to save each run, but I have seen labs write all of their files to the default data folder. This is not a good idea.

If you cannot see any signal in the preview mode (snapshot) then you are not acquiring data. All data is initially written to a temporary file and then converted to a permanent file at the end of the run. Using Snapshot you are looking at the data in the temporary file, so if you don't see anything there then the MS is not acquiring.
Mark Krause
Laboratory Director
Krause Analytical
Austin, TX USA
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