ViiA™ 7 Real-Time PCR System Support – Troubleshooting

After launching the ViiA™ 7 system software, go to the Maintenance Manager. Check if the ViiA™ 7 system icon is present in the “On the Network” window. If not, click on the “Refresh” button to the left of “Remove from My Instruments”.

If you still do not see the ViiA™ 7 icon for the following reasons:

• There is an icon but you cannot add it into the “My Instruments” area
• There is a red “X” on the instrument
• A message says “Disconnected” at the bottom of the window with a red “X” in it then you will need to add the instrument to the “My Instruments” area. Click on the wrench icon in the upper right-hand corner of the icon as pictured below. You may get a message that says that the firmware is older than the one you are trying to run. If appropriate, choose to download the new firmware and let it progress to finish. Do not turn off the instrument during this update. After the firmware update is completed, restart the instrument to check the ViiA™ 7 system icon in ‘On the Network’ area.

The calibration files are stored on the ViiA™ 7 instrument; therefore, when you need to perform a new calibration, you will have to delete the old calibration files. From the instrument console, go to the ViiA™ 7 instrument touch screen and select ‘Collect Results’. You should then see a list of files stored on the instrument. Manually select a calibration file such as “Fast-96-cal” and press the ‘Delete’ button to remove the old calibration file. Occasionally, users cannot delete the file off the instrument and may encounter this error: “Some experiments did not collect results therefore cannot be deleted.” For these situations, launch the software, go to ‘maintenance’, manage files, and download the calibration file. The status of the experiment should be displayed as ‘complete’. Next, delete the old calibration file and rerun the calibration.

This error is caused by a corrupt template or when the ‘Open Run Method’ button was selected to start the run. To avoid this, do not use corrupt templates or run files from previous software versions. If you have v.1.1 or earlier, please upgrade to the most current version. If you are using templates created from v.1.1 or earlier, please delete and recreate them in v1.2 or above. New run files created from v1.2 can use the ‘Open Run Method’ button.

If you have a file that gives you this error, please send your data file (*.eds) to techsupport@lifetech.com for assistance.

After exporting data into .xls format, the Quantity or C_t values may not be present. Select ‘Export‘ and click on ‘Load Export Set’ and then ‘OK’ and ‘OK’. Then click on ‘Start Export’. The Quantity or C_t values should now be present in the exported file.

This error can occur when the run was started from a corrupt template file or if the file name is very long or has illegal characters. Delete any templates that were created in v1.1 or earlier. Upgrade your software to the most current version. Recreate your templates in v1.2 or later. Only use templates created in v1.2 or later for any future runs. If the file name is very long, try using the “Save As” feature to resave the file with a shorter name. If this does not fix the problem, please send your file to techsupport@lifetech.com for further assistance.

In the ViiA™ 7 Real-Time PCR System, please follow the instructions found in this User Bulletin: How to Activate or Renew a License. If you have a license key associated with computer that is no longer in use, please contact our Instrument Services group at instrumentservices@lifetech.com with the serial number and license key so that they can reassign it for you.