Agilent's MassHunter software

[Ken]

Hi there.

I would like to know more about the Agilent's MassHunter software.

Is anyone here using this software? What is the pro and con of this software from Agilent?

Thanks a lot !!!

[Csaba]

Hi,
Has anyone replaced Chemstation LC-MS with Chemstore and moved to MassHunter with OpenLab ECM? What is the experience?

[orcicdejan]

OK, this response is a bit late. I'm using Mass Hunter with my LC-MS-MS (for which it's the only software available). I'm quite annoyed with it, actually, for several reasons:

1. it's a bloatware, consuming *a lot* of system resources, starting *very* slowly and generating *huge* datafiles (for example 250 MB for a 15 min scan analysis in not-too-wide m/z range)

2. while the Instrument Control part is relatively OK (and actually has some quite nice stuff), the Qual Data Analysis has only basic options, and is lacking some stuff which one would expect to find (and *can* find in LC and GC-MS ChemStation) - annotations, library building/library search, blank run subtraction, baseline subtraction, peak purity... I won't even dream of deconvolution. Until the last revision, it wasn't even able to open UV/VIS spectra that *were* stored in datafiles!

3. quite buggy, esp. the Data Analysis part; I never managed to make Reporting option working

4. use datafile formats not supported by other apps (and can only be exported to now-outdated mzData format)

[Csaba]

Hi,
Just want to update my question if there are any new MassHunters users:
Has anyone replaced Chemstation LC-MS with Chemstore and moved to MassHunter with OpenLab ECM? What is the experience?

[lmh]

Orcicdejan, I was very much under the impression MassHunter could export mzXML, which is a good up-to-date common format? Perhaps Agilent have hidden the option too carefully! Or maybe it's version dependent.

[orcicdejan]

I don't know about the newest version, but B.01.03 can export to mzData only. Also, I should warn you the process is quite slow for larger datafiles - for my samples (13 min, m/z 110-950, dwell 200 ms) it takes about 30-50 min per datafile, depending on computer I use.
There is an application called Trapper that converts .d files to mzXML. Unfortunately, the converted files are even bigger than the original .d.

[Ken]

Hi Orcic, thanks for the updates; actually, I am still looking at the pro and cons of the software as compared to other LCMS/MS software;

I got to know too that MassHunter consumes a lot of resources; did Agilent came back to you with any solutions to this? Since it's software related and resources hungry; will replacing the computer with higher spec and better improves the software proficiency?

You mentioned that running a short run ie 13 min consumed a lot of resources; I assumed that it might be MRM based scans; how many transitions are you running then? Is it slow when collecting data or can you open simultaneous data files while the instrument is running and collecting data?

I am considering a purchase soon and am looking at other options for a new instruments; hence the concerns - if anyone can help to advise, greatly appreciated ^^

[orcicdejan]

Hi, Ken.
I guess better computer would improve the performance (the computer shipped with the instrument was high-spec back then, but today you probably have more powerful machine at your home). As for the possibility of software improvement, we're stuck because the new revisions of software do not support our specific model of instrument). Just make sure you have a lot of RAM (>2 GB). And a big hard drive, if you're planning to do scan analysis (while MRM datafiles are relatively small, say 20 MB, scan files can take up to 250 GB; the good thing is you can rar them to about 1/10 of the size). And, yeah, as big display as possible.

The software itself consumes a lot of resources (500+ MB of RAM) even when not running any analysis, actually. Even the Qual Data Analysis, without any data loaded, takes about 75 MB. However, we were able (most of the time) to do the acquisition and data analysis simultaneously. The system really slows down (actually, completely blocks) around the injection. The rest of the time, it is not slow, but you risk communication failures if doing too many CPU/RAM intense operations at once.

You should also keep in mind that system performance significantly deteriorates in time. If your hard drive becomes too fragmented, you will likely end up with system unable to run the analysis (communication errors, empty datafiles etc become regular). So, it is critical to keep it as clean as possible - no additional software installed (if you really need something, use portable apps), regular disk cleanup & defrag, registry cleanup...

[Ken]

Hi Orcic, thanks for the reply.

You mentioned that you can never seems to make the reporting works; may I know how is the reporting? Is there an automated report generation?

BTW, may I know what works are you doing now?

I am considering to have another instrument for multi targeted screening and some unknown screening works; mainly on forensic drug and veterinary/pesticides analysis.

Is there any softwares from Agilent who has a simple to use interface like AB Sciex's Cliquid software?

I know that in order to optimise the compounds in Agilent Mass Hunter; you need to key in manually all the compound parameters; and there is no auto optimisation options; is this still true with the Mass Hunter software?

Thanks ~

[Csaba]

Hi Orcic,

we're stuck because the new revisions of software do not support our specific model of instrument

It is this kind of vendor support that makes users "happy".

However, we were able (most of the time) to do the acquisition and data analysis simultaneously. The system really slows down (actually, completely blocks) around the injection. The rest of the time, it is not slow, but you risk communication failures if doing too many CPU/RAM intense operations at once. "

Have you considered to have a separate instrument-PC (=iPC) with a shared disk and a seperate evaluation-PC (=ePc)? And then maybe the ePC could then have a newer MassHunter version? The ePC cost is low compared with the LC-MS, IF Agilent does not require an extra expensive MAssHunter license.
Thanks for all information. It helps to know what to test when our old MassLynx LC-MS will be replaced.

[orcicdejan]

For Ken:

There is automatic report generation, working through Excel. At some point the communication between MassHunter and Excel fails, and I only get some not-very-user-friendly error report.

Well, at the moment... nothing. Due to some power losses, the instrument broke
But otherwise, we mostly do the analysis of plant secondary biomolecules (phenolics), both qualitative and quantitative. Though, for some other research groups, sometimes we do the structural analysis of their synthesized compounds, pesticides photodegradation products etc. I know the primary purpose of QQQ is not the qualitative analysis, but we use what we got.

As for the software comparison, I wouldn't know, all the instruments I've ever worked were Agilent.

As for the automatic optimization, I'm not sure (since we do not create new quant methods very often, the manual approach is not a problem for us). There is an application, shipped with MassHunter, which creates a series of methods using rules you define (for example, collision energies in 10-40 V range with 5 V increment) and an appropriate sequence (sorry... "worklist"), but you have to do the data analysis and the optimization calculations manually.


For Csaba:
Well, we have some funny problems with our administration... It was easier for us to buy a 250 k€ LC-MS-MS than consumables, spare parts or a computer...
However, we have installed newer MassHunter DataAnalysis on our personal computers, and it does improve the situation significantly (for example, now we can see UV spectra, too). Some of the bugs are also solved, but not all. It's still not uncommon to get a not overly instructive error report when trying to do some trivial task. The greater problem is the Instrument Control software. While some communication errors can be attributed to hardware state deteriorating due to power losses, I believe there are some inherent bugs, too.

[varossf]

Csaba, Masshunter acquires the data and stores those on a local PC. With OpenLAB you can automatically archive the data using the Scheduler. The meta-data are extracted with the filter pack for Masshunter.
Regards,
Freek

[H.Thomas]

I am using MassHunter (Data Acquisistion for QQQ B.02.01, Qualitative Analysis B.02.00, Quantitative Analysis B.03.01) on a relatively current PC (Core 2 Duo E8500, 2 GB Memory). Most of the time it works fine. The operation is more or less intuitive. It certainly is still a software in an early stage of development and will get better.

The only real complaint I have ist the reporting. It might have saved the developers some time and code to use Excel for reporting, but customizing a report is a mess. I really hate it, you have no control about where some element will go on your report page. Even our stone-age Waters Millennium software hat a WYSIWYG view of the final report.

But if you can live with the standard templates (there are several different ones) you're fine.

[lmh]

H. Thomas, for interest, I seem to remember Thermo went through the same agonies. Thermo's Xcalibur initially used "Merlin" to create user-reports via Word. They don't any more. The explanation I heard was that no matter how hard Thermo tried to follow Microsoft's protocols, every time Microsoft did anything with Office, Merlin stopped working and the complaints started pouring in.

[Csaba]

Hi All,
A new year, and neither we in our company nor Agilent moves fast; best to avoid discussion about this kind of issues.... MassHunter is not yet able to control a single quad GC-MS and due to XPSP3 we had to upgrade from ChemStation D to E and that is not a major step forward. So it is time to repeat my question to MassHunters users out there: Has anyone replaced Chemstation LC-MS/GC-MS with Chemstore and moved to MassHunter with OpenLab ECM? Do you feel it is a major improvement?