Knowledge Base

B - Troubleshooting

See the following main topics:

• General issues
• Paw prints
• Data analysis and export

General Issues

CatWalk XT Crashes

Please send our Support department the log file which contains all the information needed for us to find the cause of the crash. The log file is located in the following folder:

C:\ProgramData\Noldus\CatWalk\XT 10.7\Log\CatWalk XT.log

CatWalk XT Does Not Start Anymore

If you start CatWalk XT for the first time on a computer with multiple user accounts as the administrator, other standard users are not able to use CatWalk XT anymore. This is because the configuration files, which are created the first time you start CatWalk XT, can in this case only be accessed by the administrator and not by other users.

To solve this, the administrator should delete all files and folders from C:\ProgramData\Noldus\CatWalk\XT 10.7. After this, only standard users should start CatWalk XT.

An Error Message Appears During Conversion of an Old Experiment

When opening experiments saved in older CatWalk XT versions, you may get a message like "An error occurred during the conversion of experiment [experiment name]".

Do the following:

1. Click OK and Cancel and close CatWalk XT.
2. In Windows Explorer, go to the CatWalk Experiments folder and delete the complete [experiment name] folder which contains the experiment you wanted to convert. Do not try to open the *.cwe file from the [experiment name] folder.
3. In CatWalk XT, restore the backup file that was created when you opened the experiment.

Possible causes for a conversion error are:

• The disk to which you try to save the experiment is full.
• You do not have write permission for the CatWalk Experiment folder.
• There is an error in the experiment or experiment folder. In this case, send the backup file to our Support department.

An Error Message Appears When Opening a Run

If you get a message "An error occurred while loading the data of run Run#", it means the run is corrupt. We advise you to delete this run.

To delete a run, do one of the following:

• In the Experiment Explorer, right-click a run and select Delete.
• Open the Acquisition screen, select the corresponding trial and select Live Video in the View list. Click one or more runs in the Acquired Runs list and click the Delete Run(s) button.

The Camera Is Not Detected

If the camera is not detected by CatWalk XT, wait some time. After starting up the computer and CatWalk XT, it sometimes takes about a minute before the Ethernet card detects the camera, indicated by the 'Connecting to Network' icon in the Windows task bar.

If you do not see the live camera image, it is likely that the driver is not installed or not installed properly. See the Install the Ethernet Card Driver section above.

CatWalk LED Lights Not Bright

This may happen when you turn on the CatWalk Control Unit and the walkway switch is still turned off. Turn off the Control Unit by unplugging the power plug, set the walkway switch to ON, and turn on the Control Unit again.

Camera Gain Reached Minimum Value

In the Detection Settings, you might get the message that the Camera Gain reached its minimum value of 6 during auto-detection. This can occur when you use a heavy animal (for example, greater than 300 g) for auto-detection. In this case, increase the intensity of the Green Walkway Light by 0.25 and run the auto-detection again. Repeat these steps until the Camera Gain reaches a value higher than 10.

A Run Does Not Stop After the Animal Leaves the Walkway

The background image may no longer be valid. Always grab a new background image after cleaning the walkway or moving the corridor walls.

Paw Prints

The Paw Prints Are Shown in Gray

When paw prints are shown in gray, it means that they are not selected in the currently active Data Segmentation profile. This also means that those prints are excluded from analysis.

To include those prints, use the default Data Segmentation profile All Data, or modify the one currently selected. See Select the Data for details.

There Are No Rectangles Around the Paw Prints

This can happen when, due to a high Camera Gain value or high light intensity in the room where CatWalk is set up, the abdomen or even the complete ventral side of the animal is detected as a paw print (that is, it lights up in green in the video window in CatWalk).

When this is the case and the option Discard Incomplete Prints at the Start and End of a Run is selected in the Acquisition Settings, the following happens: as soon as the animal enters the camera view, the ventral side of the body overlaps with the border of the camera image, and because of the selected option, the whole body (that is, all the prints) is discarded.

To prevent this from happening, deselect the option Discard Incomplete Prints at the Start and End of a Run.

The Mark UN Does Not Appear During Classification

Choose Setup > Classification Settings. In the window that opens, deselect both options.