> Hello,
> 
> Does anyone have experience with writing a MIDAS frontends to communicate with a device that operates using LabView (e.g. superconducting magnets, cryostats etc.). Any information or experience regarding this would be highly appreciated.
> 
> thanks,
> Zaher

We do have a superconducting magnet from Cryogenic, UK, which comes with a LabView control program on a Windows PC. I did the only reasonable with this: trash it in the waste basket. Do NOT use Labveiw for anything which should run more than 24h in a row. Too many bad experiences with LabView control programs 
for separators at PSI and other devices. Instead of the Windows PC, we use MSCB devices and RasperryPis to communicate with the power supply directly, which has been proven to be much more stable (running for years without crashes). I'm happy to share our code with you.

Stefan

> > Hello,
> > 
> > Does anyone have experience with writing a MIDAS frontends to communicate with a device that operates using LabView (e.g. superconducting magnets, cryostats etc.). Any information or experience regarding this would be highly appreciated.
> > 
> > thanks,
> > Zaher
> 
> We do have a superconducting magnet from Cryogenic, UK, which comes with a LabView control program on a Windows PC. I did the only reasonable with this: trash it in the waste basket. Do NOT use Labveiw for anything which should run more than 24h in a row. Too many bad experiences with LabView control programs 
> for separators at PSI and other devices. Instead of the Windows PC, we use MSCB devices and RasperryPis to communicate with the power supply directly, which has been proven to be much more stable (running for years without crashes). I'm happy to share our code with you.
>

Our parallel experience with the CERN ALPHA anti-hydrogen experiment: they have developed a whole labview empire
to control the cryogenics, the magnets, the positron source, the anti-proton trap, anti-hydrogen trap, etc.

At some point there was a wall of monitors in the counting room - each labview computer controlled one or two things -
so there is very many computers and each had to have a monitor (and mouse and keyboard).

All the data from this labview empire is logged to MIDAS history via felabview and feGEM, and they use
the MIDAS history to look and monitor almost everything. Control is done via Labview and Labview
based FPGA sequencers (National Instruments PXI hardware, $$$$$).

This works reasonably well to publish several papers in Nature.

But not 100%:

1) difficulties with labview source control (cannot be trivially managed by git, I guess)
2) unending fight against Microsoft and CERN IT trying to reboot the computers at the wrong time
3) more recently, forced Microsoft updates require trashing perfectly good machines and buy new ones

At TRIUMF there is very little Labview. All experiments use MIDAS and EPICS for most things.

Based on this experience, I agree with Stefan, today's sweet spot is RaspberryPi machines with USB attached
gizmos to control stuff. On the software side, drive the mess with MIDAS and custom web pages.

K.O.

Thanks Stefan, I would be very interested to see your code. At moment we have magnets and cryostats (3He and dilution) being delivered with Labview.



> > Hello,
> > 
> > Does anyone have experience with writing a MIDAS frontends to communicate with a device that operates using LabView (e.g. superconducting magnets, cryostats etc.). Any information or experience regarding this would be highly appreciated.
> > 
> > thanks,
> > Zaher
> 
> We do have a superconducting magnet from Cryogenic, UK, which comes with a LabView control program on a Windows PC. I did the only reasonable with this: trash it in the waste basket. Do NOT use Labveiw for anything which should run more than 24h in a row. Too many bad experiences with LabView control programs 
> for separators at PSI and other devices. Instead of the Windows PC, we use MSCB devices and RasperryPis to communicate with the power supply directly, which has been proven to be much more stable (running for years without crashes). I'm happy to share our code with you.
> 
> Stefan

Hi,
The question was about the TMFeRpcHandlerInterface, not the TARunObject interface.  Derived classes of TARunObject do indeed work as expected in our 
environment.  We have worked around the issue by using an implementation of TARunObject as well as the (separate) implementation of 
TMFeRpcHandlerInterface.

Thanks,

Mark.

> > I have a manalyzer that uses a derived class of TMFeRpcHandlerInterface to communicate information to 
> > Midas during online running.  At the end of each run it saves out custom data in the 
> > TMFeRpcHandlerInterface::HandleEndRun override. This works really well.
> > However, when I run offline on a Midas output file the HandleEndRun method is never called and my data is 
> > never saved.  Is this intentional?  I understand that there is no point for the HandleBinaryRpc method offline, 
> > but the other methods (HandleEndRun, HandleBeginRun etc) could serve a purpose.  Or is it a conscious 
> > choice to ignore all of TMFeRpcHandlerInterface when offline?
> 
> apologies for delayed response.
> 
> I saw the question, completely did not understand it, only now got around to figure out what is going on.
> 
> according to manalyzer/README.md, section "manalyzer module and object life time", BeginRun() and EndRun() is called 
> always. Offline and online. What you see would be a bug that we do not see in our environment. I confirm this by 
> running manalyzer in a demo mode: ./bin/manalyzer_test.exe  --demo -e10 -t
> 
> no, wait, you say you use HandleBeginRun() and HandleEndRun(). this is not right, they are not part of the manalyzer 
> API and they indeed are only used when running online.
> 
> correct solution would be to use BeginRun() and EndRun() instead of HandleBeginRun() and HandleEndRun().
> 
> you could also save your data in the module destructor (although good programming recommendation is to use 
> destructor only for unavoidable things, like freeing memory, etc).
> 
> K.O.

> The question was about the TMFeRpcHandlerInterface, not the TARunObject interface.  Derived classes of TARunObject do indeed work as expected in our 
> environment.  We have worked around the issue by using an implementation of TARunObject as well as the (separate) implementation of 
> TMFeRpcHandlerInterface.

then I do not understand the question. TMFeRpcHandlerInterface stuff is only used when running online and connected to MIDAS. How does it come into the 
picture when you analyze a data file offline? ProcessMidasOnlineTmfe() does not run, the RpcHandler object is not constructed.

maybe if you point me to your source code, I can see what you are doing?

K.O.

This was exactly the question, should I expect it to run?  There's no point in the HandleBinaryRpc method offline, but there's an argument that the HandleBeginRun/HandleEndRun methods have a use.
I have the answer and we have a workaround, thanks.

> then I do not understand the question. TMFeRpcHandlerInterface stuff is only used when running online and connected to MIDAS. How does it come into the 
> picture when you analyze a data file offline? ProcessMidasOnlineTmfe() does not run, the RpcHandler object is not constructed.
> 
> maybe if you point me to your source code, I can see what you are doing?
> 
> K.O.

I do not understand what you are doing. If you are offline, there is no TMFE singleton instance,
there is nothing TMFeRpcHandlerInterface to attach to, there is nobody to call TMFeRpcHandlerInterface methods.

Maybe what you are asking for is a mode where you analyze data from a file, but you want your analysis code
to think that it is online and that it is analyzing live data. This requires creating a fake TMFE singleton, attaching
TMFeRpcHandlerInterface to this fake TMFE singleton and using ProcessMidasOnlineTmfe(), driven by all this fake stuff:
a fake OpenBuffer() that actually opens a file, a fake ReceiveEvent() that actually reads from a file, fake callbacks
for begin and end run, etc.

That's a lot of work, but for what purpose? What is it about the existing offline and online modes that you do not like
and how all this fake stuff will make it better for you?

P.S. This is a 3rd version of my reply. Wrote and deleted 2 version. I think I completely do not understand
what you are doing and you completely do not understand what I am saying. Communication is not happening.

P.P.S. Simplest if you show me your code (email, elog), I am quite good at reading code and divining what
people are trying to do. You do not have to show me any of your secret secret stuff.

K.O.

> This was exactly the question, should I expect it to run?  There's no point in the HandleBinaryRpc method offline, but there's an argument that the HandleBeginRun/HandleEndRun methods have a use.
> I have the answer and we have a workaround, thanks.
> 
> > then I do not understand the question. TMFeRpcHandlerInterface stuff is only used when running online and connected to MIDAS. How does it come into the 
> > picture when you analyze a data file offline? ProcessMidasOnlineTmfe() does not run, the RpcHandler object is not constructed.
> > 
> > maybe if you point me to your source code, I can see what you are doing?
> > 
> > K.O.

Dear experts,
      in the CYGNO experiment, we readout CMOS cameras for optical readout of GEM-TPCs. So far, we only developed the readout for a single camera. In the future, we will have multiple cameras to read out (up to 18 in the next phase of the experiment), and we are investigating how to optimize the readout by exploiting parallelization.

One idea is to start parallel threads within a single equipment. Alternatively, one could associate different equipment with each camera and run an Event Builder. Perhaps other solutions did not come to mind. Which one would you regard as the most effective and elegant?

Thank you very much,
           Francesco

> Dear experts,
>       in the CYGNO experiment, we readout CMOS cameras for optical readout of GEM-TPCs. So far, we only developed the readout for a single camera. In the future, we will have multiple cameras to read out (up to 18 in the next phase of the experiment), and we are investigating how to optimize the readout by exploiting parallelization.
> 
> One idea is to start parallel threads within a single equipment. Alternatively, one could associate different equipment with each camera and run an Event Builder. Perhaps other solutions did not come to mind. Which one would you regard as the most effective and elegant?
> 
> Thank you very much,
>            Francesco

In principle both will work. It's kind of matter of taste. In the multi-threaded approach one has a single frontend to start and stop, and in the second case you have to start 18 individual frontends and make sure that they are running. 

For the multi-threaded frontend you have to ensure proper synchronization between the threads (like common run start/stop), and in the end you also have to do some event building, sending all 18 streams into a single buffer. As you know, multi-thread programming can be a bit of an art, using mutexes or semaphores, but it can be more flexible as the event builder which is a given piece of software.

Best,
Stefan

Dear experts,
I would like to know how to retrieve the online data during the experiment so 
that I can create my own custom plot. I execute my own frontend.exe to start the 
experiment. I can get a midas file after the experiment, but I am not sure about 
how to retrieve the online data. I know that rootana can help us to get the 
online plots, but the instructions in rootana is not clear. Can anyone give me 
some suggestion?  Thank you.

Best,
Terry

> I would like to know how to retrieve the online data during the experiment so 
> that I can create my own custom plot. I execute my own frontend.exe to start the 
> experiment. I can get a midas file after the experiment, but I am not sure about 
> how to retrieve the online data. I know that rootana can help us to get the 
> online plots, but the instructions in rootana is not clear. Can anyone give me 
> some suggestion?  Thank you.

The current package for analyzing MIDAS data is the "m" analyzer, usually in the manalyzer subdirectory of your midas package, 
but it can also be used stand-alone without MIDAS.

There is several examples:

manalyzer_example_cxx.cxx - a simple "c++" example shows how to extra midas bank data
manalyzer_example_root.cxx - how to create ROOT histograms (that you can see online using jsroot)
manalyzer_example_root_graphics.cxx - how to create a ROOT graphical program (obsoleted by jsroot, but still possible)
manalyzer_example_flow*.cxx - more advanced examples on using a flow analyzer

Documentation is in README.md

Unfortunately there is no tutorial or 5 min youtube explainer, each experiment needs are very different, there is no way to 
write a one-size-fits-all recipe.

Please take a look at the existing examples first, then send me a PM with any additional questions (or ask here). If you can 
explain what kind of data you have and how you want to look at it, I should be able to guide you through writing an appropriate 
manalyzer module.

K.O.

> > I would like to know how to retrieve the online data during the experiment so 
> > that I can create my own custom plot. I execute my own frontend.exe to start the 
> > experiment. I can get a midas file after the experiment, but I am not sure about 
> > how to retrieve the online data. I know that rootana can help us to get the 
> > online plots, but the instructions in rootana is not clear. Can anyone give me 
> > some suggestion?  Thank you.
> 
> The current package for analyzing MIDAS data is the "m" analyzer, usually in the manalyzer subdirectory of your midas package, 
> but it can also be used stand-alone without MIDAS.
> 
> There is several examples:
> 
> manalyzer_example_cxx.cxx - a simple "c++" example shows how to extra midas bank data
> manalyzer_example_root.cxx - how to create ROOT histograms (that you can see online using jsroot)
> manalyzer_example_root_graphics.cxx - how to create a ROOT graphical program (obsoleted by jsroot, but still possible)
> manalyzer_example_flow*.cxx - more advanced examples on using a flow analyzer
> 
> Documentation is in README.md
> 
> Unfortunately there is no tutorial or 5 min youtube explainer, each experiment needs are very different, there is no way to 
> write a one-size-fits-all recipe.
> 
> Please take a look at the existing examples first, then send me a PM with any additional questions (or ask here). If you can 
> explain what kind of data you have and how you want to look at it, I should be able to guide you through writing an appropriate 
> manalyzer module.
> 
> K.O.

> > I would like to know how to retrieve the online data during the experiment so 
> > that I can create my own custom plot. I execute my own frontend.exe to start the 
> > experiment. I can get a midas file after the experiment, but I am not sure about 
> > how to retrieve the online data. I know that rootana can help us to get the 
> > online plots, but the instructions in rootana is not clear. Can anyone give me 
> > some suggestion?  Thank you.
> 
> The current package for analyzing MIDAS data is the "m" analyzer, usually in the manalyzer subdirectory of your midas package, 
> but it can also be used stand-alone without MIDAS.
> 
> There is several examples:
> 
> manalyzer_example_cxx.cxx - a simple "c++" example shows how to extra midas bank data
> manalyzer_example_root.cxx - how to create ROOT histograms (that you can see online using jsroot)
> manalyzer_example_root_graphics.cxx - how to create a ROOT graphical program (obsoleted by jsroot, but still possible)
> manalyzer_example_flow*.cxx - more advanced examples on using a flow analyzer
> 
> Documentation is in README.md
> 
> Unfortunately there is no tutorial or 5 min youtube explainer, each experiment needs are very different, there is no way to 
> write a one-size-fits-all recipe.
> 
> Please take a look at the existing examples first, then send me a PM with any additional questions (or ask here). If you can 
> explain what kind of data you have and how you want to look at it, I should be able to guide you through writing an appropriate 
> manalyzer module.
> 
> K.O.

Dear K.O.
I would like to create some online plots (also reading the mid) when the frontend code is running. I may try to break the task into small steps first.
In the frontend.cxx, I have a bank called "TDC0" which includes an array of integer. The code is as follow:

bk_create(pevent, "TDC0", TID_INT, (void**) &pdata);
for(int i =0; i<ch; ++i)
*pdata++ = data[i];
bk_close(pevent,pdata);

In the meantime, I want to run manalyzer to get some plots.

So I started our DAQ with an updated midas, after ca. 6 months+. 

No issues except all FEs complaining about the Alarm ODB structure.
* I adapted to the new structure ( trigger count & trigger count required )
* restarted fe's
* recompiled  

18:17:40.015 2025/09/30 [EPICS Frontend,INFO] Fixing ODB "/Alarms/Alarms/logger" 
struct size mismatch (expected 452, odb size 460)

18:17:40.009 2025/09/30 [SC Frontend,INFO] Fixing ODB "/Alarms/Alarms/logger" 
struct size mismatch (expected 460, odb size 452)

how do I get the FEs + ODB back in line here?

thanks

> So I started our DAQ with an updated midas, after ca. 6 months+.

Would be worthwhile mentioning the git commit hash or tag you are using.

> No issues except all FEs complaining about the Alarm ODB structure.
> * I adapted to the new structure ( trigger count & trigger count required )
> * restarted fe's
> * recompiled  
> 
> 18:17:40.015 2025/09/30 [EPICS Frontend,INFO] Fixing ODB "/Alarms/Alarms/logger" 
> struct size mismatch (expected 452, odb size 460)
> 
> 18:17:40.009 2025/09/30 [SC Frontend,INFO] Fixing ODB "/Alarms/Alarms/logger" 
> struct size mismatch (expected 460, odb size 452)

This seems to be https://daq00.triumf.ca/elog-midas/Midas/2980

> how do I get the FEs + ODB back in line here?

Recompile all frontends against new midas.

Nick.

Just to be clear, it seems that your "EPICS Frontend" was either not recompiled against the new midas yet or the old binary is being run, but "SC Frontend" is using the new midas.

> > So I started our DAQ with an updated midas, after ca. 6 months+.
> 
> Would be worthwhile mentioning the git commit hash or tag you are using.
> 
> > No issues except all FEs complaining about the Alarm ODB structure.
> > * I adapted to the new structure ( trigger count & trigger count required )
> > * restarted fe's
> > * recompiled
> > 
> > 18:17:40.015 2025/09/30 [EPICS Frontend,INFO] Fixing ODB "/Alarms/Alarms/logger" 
> > struct size mismatch (expected 452, odb size 460)
> > 
> > 18:17:40.009 2025/09/30 [SC Frontend,INFO] Fixing ODB "/Alarms/Alarms/logger" 
> > struct size mismatch (expected 460, odb size 452)
> 
> This seems to be https://daq00.triumf.ca/elog-midas/Midas/2980
> 
> > how do I get the FEs + ODB back in line here?
> 
> Recompile all frontends against new midas.
> 
> Nick.

Sorry to intervene there, but the FEs are usually compiled against libmidas.a . Therefore you have to compile midas, usually do a "make install" to update the libmidas.a/so, then recompile the FEs. You probably forgot the "make install".

Stefan

> Sorry to intervene there, but the FEs are usually compiled against libmidas.a . Therefore you have to compile midas, usually do a "make install" to update the libmidas.a/so, then recompile the FEs. You probably forgot the "make install".
> 
> Stefan

OK, solved, closed. Turned out I messed up rebuilding some of the FEs.

More generally, and with the "Documentation" discussion of the workshop in mind, ODB mismatch error messages of all kind are a recurring phenomena confusing users. And MIDASGPT gave complete wrong suggestions.  

I am updating TWIST to the latest MIDAS and when I load a saved .odb file, I get
these messages. Their text ought to say where and what strings it does not like.
K.O.



[twistonl@midtwist ~/online]$ odbedit
Please define environment variable 'MIDASSYS'
pointing to the midas installation directory.
[local:twist:S]/>load /twist/data_onl/current/run17548.odb
[odb.c:5600:db_paste] found string exceeding MAX_STRING_LENGTH
[odb.c:5600:db_paste] found string exceeding MAX_STRING_LENGTH
[odb.c:5600:db_paste] found string exceeding MAX_STRING_LENGTH

Can you attach 

/twist/data_onl/current/run17548.odb

so I can reproduce the problem?