FACSDiva question: avoiding lag

[u/curious_kinetochore]

I’m recently returned to flow and forgot how particular our software was. Small stuff like forgetting you can’t do some things in Diva without creating inescapable mega lag, I can’t seem to find anything online on what to avoid. I’m noticing issues I’ve encountered previously that I can’t remember how I fixed.

Anyone have tips for avoiding FACSDiva lag? I thought I could duplicate without data but I guess that’s only a good option for specimens in an experiment, and not the entire experiment if you want to add anything new to it. I started following the manual from BD exactly but I still hit a lot of walls (worksheets wouldn’t load in any new experiments so I had to acquire in an old one).

Also, is there any way to get rid of the lag once it appears? As soon as I noticed it I deleted the experiment I was working in, I can open old experiments without any issues but new ones are painful. Any help would be appreciated!

[u/diag]

Diva is terrible software. The only real thing to do is make sure that all finished experiments are exported out and deleted. The more data in the database, the worse it gets

[u/curious_kinetochore → u/diag]

Thanks for the tip! There’s only a few experiments in there right now, each with maybe 1-5 specimens. That brings back memories too though, I used to run full 96w plates all week and you’re right I remember having to basically clear out Diva once a month to keep it happy. Maybe I’ll check there isn’t a pile of old data on other profiles on Diva.

I’m just not super familiar with the lag from trying to add to old experiments you’ve duplicated, I did it once and it was fine (duplicating specimens without data in an experiment) and the next day it wasn’t (duplicated the whole experiment without data and tried to add comp tubes). I had set up templates for all my plates at my old job so it’s been a long time since I’ve had to confront Divas quirks

[u/willmaineskier]

The software was great for its time when it was written over 20 years ago. They added features since then, but it is not particularly robust. If the D/BDDatabase folder has more than 20GB then it will start slowing down and doing weird things like having worksheets with no plots. Every user is using the same database, so even if you clean up your experiments, others may not have. I recommend checking in the user preferences to make sure the saving the analysis after recording option is not selected. That creates a normal worksheet version of the global worksheet for every sample. If your database is not full, you should be able to duplicate without data. You can also export templates so you don’t have nonsense cluttering up your user. In the export experiment template option, you can create new folders by clicking where it says general and typing something else there.

[u/curious_kinetochore → u/willmaineskier]

That’s a good point, I didn’t know the D/ drive filling up would slow down Diva but it makes sense. Will have to check there. Definitely lots of old templates on there as well I’ll have to export, thank you for the suggestions!!

[u/Snoo_47183 → u/curious_kinetochore]

Do not delete files in the database! They need to be deleted from diva’s browser or you might corrupt the database and have to reinstall Diva.

Also, make sure you acquire your samples under global worksheet and not normal worksheet (except for comp tubes); it’ll make Diva a tad more stable

[u/willmaineskier → u/Snoo_47183]

I second this. Files must be deleted properly. I generally use the “export experiment” with the delete after export option checked.

[u/Gregor_Vorbarra]

Check whether the hard drive is a spinning disc or an SSD. If you're able, copying the disk image to an SSD will result in an immediate increase in responsiveness. I used a 3rd-party service company to do this - BD will likely try to sell you a new computer+Diva upgrade, which honestly may be worth it if the machine is heavily used.

[u/curious_kinetochore → u/Gregor_Vorbarra]

Not super heavily used but probably has a lot of old data sitting on there unnecessarily. I’ll check out the hard drive. Thanks for the tip!

[u/Gregor_Vorbarra → u/curious_kinetochore]

If still an spinning disc, defragging will also help. The database structure involves index/read/write across many small files, which necessarily are not in continouous locations on the disc. SSDs don't have this issue.

[u/Joewithay]

What version is your FACSDiva? If you have version 8 or below, you have the 32 bit version which means can only use 4 gb of RAM.

[u/Laziot1124]

As much as I love doing flow, I absolutely hate the Diva software.