We've been trying to get Agilent ChemStore up and running in our pharmaceutical lab for nearly two years now with limited success. The software appears to be a bit buggy - so buggy that it doesn't appear to work properly. Even simple functions such as retrieving data from the data base is problematic. Is anyone out there using ChemStore successfully, what kinds of problems have you encountered? I don't think our labs are using anything other than standard working practices which I would expect a chromatography data storage system to be able to cope with.

We just got Chemstore a few months ago, with A.09 for Win2000. We needed our beloved IT dep't. to set up Win2000 with stuff like how often to change password, no. of characters, etc. (Agilent showed us how to do such with Chemstore passwords). Then our QA director said we need to make sure that the database files cannot be intentionally or accidentally deleted by an operator (protected except for administrator), which I believe Agilent should've set up for us, even though that's apparently a win2000 function; we're still working with Agilent on that few weeks), and I think we'll get that straightened out. We have noticed other Chemstation glitches as well, here are most of them (I understand this software stuff is complicated, and way over my head):

Heading over percent column in Sequence Summary Report doesn’t state “percent, but ends up being the same as that typed in for sample amount in Compound Settings (all newer than A.03)

Cannot directly access floppy drive “A” or non-C drives from Chemstations A.09 on HPLC 1100 with LAN (A.09.01 with Security Pack) – must type in “A: then ENTER button” first to access files and directories on floppy or non-C drives.

When overlaying integrated peaks in A.09.01 with Security Pack, window appears stating error, must click.

Sequence directory on monitor while running a sequence is NOT the actual directory where the data is going (it’s from a previous sequence) A.09.01 with Security Pack

A.03 GC has no “Snapshot” command, must type in on command line.

A.03 GC when saving a Method offline, injection size defaults to 1 ul and washes/pumps defaults to zero.

A.09 with Security Pack HPLC 1050: if using 34-sample tray and more than 21 vials, must do reprocessing with Online Chemstation to access vials higher than #21.

To original Anonymous - what versions of ChemStation/ChemStore are you using? From talking with Agilent and other ChemStore users, the most common problem with retrieving data is your own logic.

As goes getting the data into ChemStation - how are you doing this - by Batch reprocess or retrieving the whole sequence? And what security levels are you giving your users - Operator or Manager?

To anonymous 2 - if you are working in a regulated environment (which would seem to be the case, since you have security pack), why are you trying to move data using floppy disks? You are going to loose the audit trail of where data is if you are doing this - an obvious bad thing in the eyes of regulatory investigators. And how come you are still on version A.03 for you GCs - support for this has long since expired - you have A.09, so you can use your current licences to upgrade to this (which will eliminate the issues you are finding, though as with any piece of software, may well introduce additional minor problems elsewhere).

We use A.03 on two non-pharmaceutical systems/computers; we use it as they are powered by 486 computers, and there's no real business reason to upgrade hardware, computers, and software. And A.03 has some advantages over later stuff like less glitches, can zoom any time, etc. As to the pharmaceutical stuff, we sometimes copy Methods and Sequence files from one unit to another, rather than make up from scratch for each of the units; remember, we do non-pharmaceutical as well, and don't dedicate one HPLC per each assay like most manufacturing labs do. As to support being long expired, same situation exists for my late 1970s vintage GCs, but they do the job fine.