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Thermo Fisher Scientific

No Communication with iCAP Qnova Series Instrument in Qtegra

Issue

iCAP Q, RQ, or TQ instrument is not communicating with Instrument Control or Qtegra applications

Environment

  • iCAP Q
  • iCAP RQ
  • iCAP TQ
  • ECCN: EAR99

Resolution

 

An apparent lack of communication in Qtegra can be due to many things such as the actual hardware connection with the instrument or one of the Qtegra services experiencing an issue. Therefore, the first thing which needs to be discerned is if the apparent lack of communication is hardware or software related. This can be done as follows:

Troubleshooting Hardware Failure

1)    Open the Device Manager in Windows. One way this can be accomplished in Win 10 is:

a)    Click on the Search icon Search icon.png if available in the Windows taskbard OR Right-click on the Windows icon and select Search

b)    Type “Device Manager” in the Search box and then click Open

Device Manager 2.png

2)    In Device Manager, Expand the tree for Ports by left-clicking on the triangle next to Ports

Ports.png

3)    If the “Thermo Fisher USB Link to iCAP Q” is present in the list of COM ports (see red box in Figure 1 below) then it can be reasonably assumed that the hardware connection with the instrument is ok. Therefore, proceed to the section Troubleshooting software failure section.

However, if the “Thermo Fisher USB Link to iCAP Q” COM port is not listed OR there is a yellow exclamation mark next to the the port name, proceed in this section.

Device Manager - iCAP Q.png

Figure 1: Instrument COM port

4)    Power cycle the instrument by shutting off the instrument for 30s and then powering it back on.

5)    Check Device Manager again to see if the instrument COM port is listed. If it is, then check to see if communication has been restored in Qtegra or Instrument Control.

6)    If a power cycle of the instrument fails to restore the instrument COM port in Device Manager, remove the instrument USB cable from PC and plug it into another USB 2.0 port. Does the "Thermo Fisher USB Link to iCAP Q" now appear like that in Figure 1?

If a power cycle of the instrument and new USB port fails to restore the instrument COM port in Device Manager, then contact Technical Support for additional assistance.

Troubleshooting Software Failure

1) Switch to another configuration that only has the instrument (no autosampler) in order to ensure that the lack of communicaiton is not being cause by a communication issue     with an accessory such as an autosampler and not the instrument. A communication issue with one device in the configuration will load down the entire configuraion and can     cause no communication with all plugins present in the configuration

2) Qtegra Services are used to enable different functionalities within the software such as communication with the instrument and changing an instrument setting. Sometimes,     one or more of these services can freeze and therefore need to be reset in order to establish functionality again. The Qtegra     Services can be restarted by referencing this     knowledge article: Restarting Qtegra Services

3) In addition, the communication between the services and applications is done using Microsoft Message Queue Service. All of the features of the MSMQ need to be enabled     in order to ensure it is functioning properly. Reference this knowledge article Microsoft Message Queue Server - MSMQ - Features to ensure that all of the MSMQ features     are turned on.