Troubleshooting

This Chapter describes the symptoms of some known error conditions and suggests courses of action that offer the prospect of remedy. This section is constantly changing: system upgrades remove old problems and generate new ones. Please report any problems you encounter, including all lost time, using the online fault report form:

http://www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au/feedback

Before going any further, be sure you are familiar with any current observing issues, which are documented at http://www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au/observing/CurrentIssues.html. Also, talk to your DA to see if there are more recent (and hopefully more temporary) issues that might affect your observation.

All hardware problems require on-site staff for their solution. In a complex system like the ATCA, problems can manifest themselves in a number of subtle or not so subtle ways. There are, however, some sure signs that things have gone wrong:

• The Primary Monitoring system (PMON) is trying to tell you something.
• Either of CAOBS or CACOR is not working as expected.
• Scans are not starting and stopping as usual.
• Neither CAMON nor ASSISTANCE is working (You should have these going at all times).
• The SPD or VIS displays indicate that the data is somehow corrupt.
• Error messages are appearing in ASSISTANCE, CACOR or CAOBS windows.

The sections below discuss each of the main error conditions, followed by other common problems. While this information is provided to try to help you sorting out problems, please get help if you are unsure of what you are doing, or out of your depth in any way. The Duty Astronomer and ATCA staff are here to help!