End of product support. The end of product support for ChemTrak for DOS (CTD) was announced in January 1997, and all licensed users were so notified. Annual maintenance fees were also discontinued at that time, and the last active client maintenance subscriptions expired in December 1997. These notes are therefore advisory and are provided as a courtesy only.

Typical problems. The most common calls we receive regarding CTD fall into these four distinct categories:

1. New computer. A CTD user has purchased a new computer and needs help reinstalling the program or transferring their data from the old computer.

2. Computer upgrade. A CTD user has upgraded their computer from Windows 3x to Windows 95 and needs help reconfiguring the program.

3. System problem. A CTD user has experienced a system problem (or complete crash) and needs help to fix the problem, recover their data, or reinstall the program on a new hard drive.

4. New printer. A CTD user has purchased a new printer and can no longer print from ChemTrak, or the printed reports are not formatted correctly.

Reference resource. The notes contained in this document address these four common questions. If these matters are beyond your computer skills or experience, your local computer technician should be able to use these notes as a reference resource to provide you with further assistance.

Billable assistance. If after reading these notes you feel that you still need help from OCS and if your 90–day free support period following a recent purchase has expired, please be prepared with a credit card number when calling, which will be charged at the rate of $60 per hour including telephone and any offline time spent researching your problem. We will usually ask that you fax a copy of your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS system files, and we may also need your computer and/or your latest ChemTrak backup diskettes. In–shop computer troubleshooting time (if you bring or ship us your computer) is charged at $50 per hour.

Disclaimer. OCS cannot be responsible for free assistance with changes you may have made to your system, or for new computers or printers you may have purchased, or for network changes or additions, or for computer system problems you may be having, or for new technologies that have been developed and introduced in the years since ChemTrak for DOS was designed and released.

Next release. The successor to CTD will be ChemTrak Online (CTO), expected to be available in the first quarter of 1999 or soon thereafter. CTO is an entirely new and different product, for which support will bear little resemblance to the DOS version it is replacing.

Related Clarion error message: "Insufficient memory..."

ChemTrak requires that approximately 550K or more of free conventional DOS memory (RAM) be available before starting the program to ensure full functionality. Somewhat less may still be adequate, but 512K should be considered a minimum and at this level a certain degree of multi–window stacking within ChemTrak (for "drill down" detail) will be limited.

As a gauge, notice that most ChemTrak menus and other screens display your free memory at the bottom right corner. In general, you should see 50K or more at the main menu. If this number falls below 20K while using the program, try to reduce the number of "stacked" ChemTrak windows. An example of how this can happen is by choosing to add one or more levels of new items directly from a lookup list ... although this is a real convenience, the program uses less memory if you exit back to "Utilities" to enter new items.

Installation problems which are due to insufficient free memory can cause a number of various and often unpredictable error messages to appear. You can check your computer’s memory status at a DOS "C:\>" prompt by typing MEM +Enter on systems with DOS 6x or higher. Note the line that reads "Largest executable program size" ... if it is 550K or more, all should go well. Free memory between 512K and 550K is marginal but may be adequate, but below 512K will almost certainly cause problems. For more detail about where all of your memory is being used, enter MEM /C | MORE (the "|" character is on the backslash key).

If you have an older machine and the MEM command returns a "Bad command or file name" error message, try typing CHKDSK +Enter. Look at the final number displayed, which should read something like "550,000 bytes free" to indicate 550K.

Keep in mind that it does not matter whether your computer has 1MB of total memory, or 16MB, or 128MB or whatever ... generally speaking, DOS conventional memory cannot exceed 640K regardless how much total extended memory may be physically installed in your computer. Many utilities can reduce the 640K your DOS system has available for startup every time you turn on your computer ... CD–ROM drives, networks, hard drive management utilities, background virus watchers, background fax modems, and even Windows and your mouse all take their toll.

If you discover that your machine’s free conventional memory is low, there are a few ways to try improving the situation:

1. MemMaker. On computers running DOS 6x, you can try using the DOS utility "MemMaker." But even though this is quite common and straightforward, it can still be a bit adventurous for novice computer users and you may want to seek some help from your local consultant, technician, dealer, or other guru. Technical support at OCS may be able to help over the phone, but there is often a limit to what can be done from a distance – and that support will be billable.

   To use the MemMaker utility on DOS 6 systems (not for Windows 95), simply type MEMMAKER +Enter at a DOS C:\> prompt. For best results, we recommend the following answers to its few questions: choose "Custom" (not Express), then "No" regarding EMS memory (unless you know that you have a program that uses this older specification, like Lotus for DOS), then fill in the final short list of questions in this order: N–Y–Y–N–N–Y. Now follow the remaining instructions and the program will automatically test multiple memory configurations to determine the optimum settings. MemMaker is successful at finding a net gain in free memory more often than not, it makes backup copies of your important system files, and it has a final "Undo" feature to use if there are any problems.

2. Other Utilities. There are other memory management utilities that at one time were popular for handling DOS memory configuration issues. Two examples are QEMM from Quarterdeck Software and Max Headroom from Helix Software. If you still have or use any of these utilities, to use them effectively you should be a fairly experienced computer user.

3. Windows 3x or 9x. ChemTrak for DOS can be installed and run very easily from within any version of Windows. If you are installing a Windows 9x (Win95 or Win98) upgrade over a version on which ChemTrak was previously installed and running properly, all existing system settings should be preserved automatically. If you are installing or reinstalling ChemTrak on a new Win9x computer, refer to Section 2 regarding Files. If you find a statement in your CONFIG.SYS system file that references EMM386.EXE, note that this statement should be followed by a NOEMS parameter. All Win9x users should also refer to Section 6 regarding printing.

Related Clarion error messages: "Too many files..." or "Cannot share..."

When ChemTrak is installed it automatically checks your CONFIG.SYS file to see if a "Files" statement exists, and if so to see if it is set to at least 60, and make sure there is only one FILES statement. For some computer configurations the FILES=60 setting may not be high enough. Networks will typically need a higher number (is usually adequate). On Novell NetWare systems, you may also need to find your NET.CFG file and enter the line FILE HANDLES=100 (make sure that the sum of the two file statements does not exceed 254). Save the file(s) when finished editing and restart your computer.

On some newer computers running Windows 9x, there may not be a CONFIG.SYS file in your primary hard drive’s root directory. In this case, just create a file with that name and set FILES=60 as its only content.

Related Clarion error messages: "Cannot share..." or "Too many files..."

ChemTrak does not require the DOS SHARE utility, but some networks and other programs do. If your computer is already running SHARE, it can usually be found by editing one of your two DOS startup system files, AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS – they’re in the root directory of your primary hard drive, and if SHARE is active it will be usually be loading from one or the other of these files (a less common exception is that SHARE is loading via a menu batch file).

A problem can arise with ChemTrak if SHARE is loaded on your computer (i.e., if required by another program) without parameters. In its default mode – that is, without parameters – it interferes with the DOS FILES statement described above. Fortunately, the solution is simple: after finding where your SHARE command is being loaded on startup, notice that there is probably no text following the word SHARE. Simply add these parameters to make the line read like this: SHARE /F:4096 /L:200. There may be a path preceding the word SHARE, and if your problem persists try increasing the /L: parameter to as much as 500 (sometimes necessary on networks). Save the file when finished and restart your computer.

Hard drive caching

As you add more data to ChemTrak you may feel that either the program or your computer is running more slowly. A related indicator may be excessive hard drive activity, manifested by a constantly flickering drive light or a noticeable "chattering" noise. If so, it is possible that your system has not been set up to use any kind of hard drive caching, which can dramatically improve the performance of your system.

Win9x systems handle this automatically. On older pure–DOS and Win3x systems, one of the most common drive caching utilities is "Smartdrive," which is included with later versions of Microsoft DOS. To determine whether Smartdrive is installed and running on your computer, type MEM /C | MORE +Enter at a C:> prompt (the "|" character is on your backslash key.) If it is running you will see SMARTDRV listed in the left column of the table displayed on your screen. If not, ask your local computer technician if it can be installed on your system.

Periodic hard drive maintenance is also an important part of extended computer life and troublefree operation. See also further discussion in this document’s "Final check," beginning further in this document.

Related Clarion error message ... Disk 47 error (in Win95)

This is a normal printer spooling issue related to how Windows 95 manages print jobs from DOS programs - it is not a ChemTrak problem. It is easily fixed as follows: At the Win95 desktop, click on Start > Settings > Printers. Right–click on the printer ChemTrak will use. Choose Properties at bottom of submenu, then click on the Details tab, then the Port Settings button. Uncheck the top checkbox ("Spool MS–DOS print jobs"). Click OK two times, then close the Printers window. Test a print job in ChemTrak (or any other DOS program) – it should now be OK.

Attempts to print anything fail - nothing prints

Our guess is that you have purchased a Hewlett–Packard Deskjet, and probably a model number ending in 20 (e.g., 420, 520, 620, 720, or 820). Again, this is not a ChemTrak problem – it is due to the fact that these printers do not recognize DOS programs.

The test is easy: in Windows, open a DOS session (click on Start, Programs, MS–DOS Prompt). At the C:\Windows> prompt type EDIT WINNEWS.TXT. You can open/edit any file you wish, all we’re going to do is try to print it – this particular file is convenient only because it is usually found in the default C:\Windows folder. If it is not found, just select any other sample text file.

With the DOS Edit program open and a file displayed, click on File > Print (assuming your printer is on LPT1). If nothing prints, you have confirmed that your new printer does not recognize output from any DOS program, not just ChemTrak. The only solution is to use a different printer.

Reports print text beyond the right margin

The problem report is usually the California Monthly Use Report, and the only section exhibiting this problem is in the center, where the individual chemicals used in an application are printed. The font size in this section should normally be noticeably smaller than the text above and below – if it is not (i.e., if it is exactly the same), the problem is a mismatch between the printer type selected in ChemTrak and the printer (or emulation) you are actually using.

This can usually be further confirmed by looking at the top–left corner of your printed report – if you see a small, odd character printer there, you indeed have a mismatch.

The solution is to determine what standard your printer is set to emulate, and then select a match in ChemTrak > Utilities > Printer Setup. Touch F1 at "Printer Name" to display the choices – and remember that the six options displayed represented virtually all of the common emulations when CTD was designed and released, so it is not necessary to see your exact printer name and model in the list of six. All you need to do is select the model type that matches the standard your printer is configured to emulate, which can usually be determined through the printer’s setup utility as described in your printer manual.

If after trying all six choices in ChemTrak you see no acceptable change, it will probably be necessary to refer to the Control Code section in your printer’s reference manual. If there is no similar section in your manual, you may need to contact your printer dealer or the manufacturer – OCS will be unable to help. CTD uses only two very basic font control codes: one that sets character size to normal (10cpi), and one that changes it to compressed (usually 15–17cpi).

Transferring ChemTrak to a new computer

New computers are being purchased today in droves. ChemTrak can be used on virtually any DOS or Windows based machine, including Win95, Win98, and WinNT. ChemTrak is entirely self-contained within its single directory - simply copy all files from the old directory to the new one.

We recommend that you do not use the automatic INSTALL procedure on your original program diskettes when simply transferring from one computer to another. This can sometimes require that each version be reinstalled in proper sequence and the situation can become more complex than it needs to be. If all has been working fine on your old machine, just copy the ChemTrak directory to the new one. That's all it takes.

It may be necessary to fine tune the autoexec.bat and config.sys system files, or to create them on newer systems that no longer use those files - see configuration details elsewhere in this document. Also, be sure to see the section titled "New Printers" and "Printing Errors" for instructions regarding a very common default printer control setting that is necessary to change on Windows machines.

ChemTrak backup diskettes contain simple DOS copies of all required data files. If a startup error on the new machine states that (for example) "ctclient.dat not found," it should be possible to simply copy that file from the latest backup diskette. Even if you cannot start the program to access the Utility menu where backup and restore options are located, a complete restore of all data files (*.dat and *.mem) can easily be done using standard DOS or Windows file copy procedures.

You may periodically wish to remove old data from ChemTrak. An individual application record may be removed by selecting it and touching Delete.

Within the Utility section, you may select a Grower touch Delete to remove it - if application records exist for that grower, a bright red message will appear warning that all related applications will also be removed. Similarly, if an Enterprise is deleted, all application records for that Enterprise will also be removed (with the same warning message).

Caution: If a Product is deleted, it will be removed from all applications where it was used (same warning message), which could leave an erroneous record trail.

The Utilities > Purge Applications feature may be used to remove a group of specific application records for a specific Grower and/or a specific Enterprise, for a specific range of dates. Caution: on some older computer models this feature has occasionally been problematic.

In all cases, be sure you have a current backup before removing data! For an alternative method to removing old data, see the next section on "Separating Years."

Separating Years

Click here for detailed instructions on keeping your ChemTrak years in separate directories.

General Maintenance

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Common Computer Problems

Quite a variety of strange and often unpredictable problems and error messages can result from too little free DOS memory and/or too little free hard drive space. Most often, a caller will explain that "everything was working fine until recently" ... so, what can happen that might suddenly (or so it appears at least) start causing a problem?

Actually, quite a number of things that are very often not at all related to ChemTrak can lead to problems. For one thing, as you continue to use the various different programs on your computer, they are usually creating and storing more and more files on your hard drive. This not only produces normal wear and tear which can eventually cause a problem unpredictably, but it also continues to use up your available hard drive space.

As a general rule of thumb, if less that 10% of your hard drive’s total size remains available as free space, you should start to expect a higher possibility of random system behavior problems. Periodic hard drive maintenance should always be performed in any case, but in low free space circumstances this can become even more important.

Windows 9x does more of this kind of work for you, more automatically than either Windows 3x or DOS–only systems – but periodic "defragging" and optimizing will often find (and hopefully solve) hard drive problems before they become unrecoverable. Please check with your local computer technician for more advice and help on these issues.

Or, when some new programs are installed on your computer – for example, a new accounting program or an update, or a new word processor – they will of course take up more hard drive space. Or worse, they may automatically change the way your computer’s startup DOS memory is configured, which can directly affect ChemTrak’s performance or even its ability to start and run. If you have children who also use your computer (or if you’re a computer game fan yourself), please be aware that games are the most notorious for this kind of unanticipated interference with other programs!

New accessory installations can also rob your system of valuable startup memory. CD–ROM drives, scanners, and game joysticks are especially likely to make changes to your system files which will then impact on available conventional memory.

Computer viruses can of course scramble or delete important files and cause various other unpredictable mischief. In general, you should be safe if you never connect to the Internet and never allow untested diskettes to be used in your computer. The most prudent defense in any case is to invest in an inexpensive virus scanning utility, configure it to run automatically, and keep it updated regularly. Again, your local computer dealer should be able to help with this.

Electrical power (voltage) fluctuations are another well–known cause of data corruption. See the previous discussion in the "Program halt" section on Page 3 in this document.

Other Known Issues

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Product Library. This feature is no longer functional. The library originally provided a convenient lookup list of common pesticides, with their manufacturer, EPA number, and general formulation information preset as shortcuts when entering new products.

However, it was always recommended that selections be checked against product labels for accuracy, since the list was static and did not reflect ongoing manufacturer changes. And, it was always necessary to complete each product’s setup manually with your own usage data. Now that the library has not been updated for a few years and will not be further maintained, its use is no longer valid or recommended.

CEDTS. We have received reports in a small number of cases where CEDTS electronic transmissions include products that were not actually applied. These have come from very large operations with frequent Enterprise changes and complex mixes. We have been unable to reproduce the same problems with any meaningful consistency and they are therefore unresolved.

The majority of our CEDTS users do not experience this problem. If you are beginning to use CEDTS, please monitor your initial electronic reports with the ag commissioner’s office you’re reporting to. Should you experience any problem that we cannot resolve, remember that you have a 90–day period following purchase within which it may be returned to us for a full refund.

Y2K

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Year 2000 Compliance

ChemTrak for DOS is not entirely Y2K compliant from a theoretical viewpoint, but it is probably enough so that it won't cause you any problems as a practical matter.

ChemTrak's internal programming language is capable of date management through about the year 2030. However, the internal workings need to be told whether 1/20/00 represents the year 1900 or 2000. Since all ChemTrak dates are in 6-digit mm/dd/yy format, the year information is not passed explicitly - and the internal language would interpret 1/20/00 as January 20, 1900.

However, the public never sees these internal workings - if a printed date on a report indicates 1/20/00, it should be obvious to any reader that this is 6-digit format for January 20, 2000.

Furthermore, ChemTrak does not use dates to perform any calculations. Unlike a financial program that must calculate interest or mortgages or taxes, or a certification program that might keep track of expiration dates, or a scheduling program that spans long-term date ranges - ChemTrak's dates are used for reference only. They tell you on what date an application was applied, and that's it.

Also, no other programs depend on or interrelate with ChemTrak to provide valid date information - it is a standalone program that uses dates only as reference s.

We are aware of only a few minor items to be aware of:

1. One application spans the millennium. If you enter an application with a starting date in late December 1999 and attempt to give it an ending date in January 2000, the program will think the application ended before it started and will not allow that date range.

   The solution is simple - if you're out spraying on New Year's Eve and don't expect to finish until New Year's Day, either adjust your dates slightly so that they are fully contained within one year or the other, or enter two application records for that job (one in each year).

2. Monthly reports. When selecting a date range for some reports, ChemTrak tries to be smart about determining how to print the month at the top of the report.

   For example, if for a monthly use report you enter a date range of 10/01/98-10/31/98, the next line will display "October 1998" to be used in the report's heading. If you select 6/1/99-6/30/99, the next line will read "June 1999." But if you enter 11/1/98 - 1/31/99, the next line will read "Nov-Jan 1999" - you've outsmarted the program and you would need to edit that text to print correctly at the top of the report. This date range is obviously prior to and unrelated to the Y2K issue.

   Likewise, if you enter 3/1/00-3/31/00, the next line will read "March 1900" - but this is only a guess on the part of the program, which you can easily edit. Just replace 1900 with 2000 (or whatever the current year actually is) when printing reports and this small issue is solved.

3. Report titles. The standard daily and monthly PURs (pesticide use reports) print the month and year in the title section of those reports in long format. So, while an individual application on one of those reports might be dated "2/15/00" and be properly interpreted by readers as February 15, 2000 - the report title will print "FEBRUARY 1900" in the top-left corner of the page.

   This is cosmetic only, but it might be annoying for those who wish to continue using the discontinued DOS version of the program. There will not be a programming fix for this item for a few reasons:

   1. It does not affect the program's use or accuracy.

   2. Individual users can fix it easily by striking out the "1900" and writing in "2000" at the top of these periodic reports. If you wish to continue using the old DOS version, you might even have a small rubber stamp made each year - label it "Y2K FIX" and keep it by your printer. This might sound frivolous but it is not intended to be so - it is the fastest and easiest solution to the problem.

   3. Fixing this one small item, as simple as it might seem, would require a full program update. That's a fair bit of work on our end in programming, instructions, and distribution - and then, as anyone who has ever been through the process of a software update for any product knows, it never goes quite as smoothly as we all might wish. In fixing one thing, as often as not something else gets broken. ChemTrak for DOS is a discontinued product, and we cannot at this time risk reopening support issues that have long been closed - the bandaid solution above is just too simple to warrant anything more involved.

4. Days to harvest. If you have ChemTrakPlus, and if you've set a projected harvest date for each of your enterprises, and if you've set a generic days-to-harvest value for each product you use - ChemTrak will try to be smart about warning when a product has been selected for a given application date that has a preharvest interval that will exceed the projected harvest date.

   Since the projected harvest date is often estimated early in the season, ChemTrak allows this informational pop-up warning to be quickly adjusted to a date what will allow the use of the selected pesticide product.

   So, similar to Item #1 above, if on 12/28/99 you select a product with (for example) a 14-day preharvest restriction, to be applied on an enterprise where you had set the projected harvest date at 1/5/00 - the program would issue a warning. This kind of an issue would probably occur very rarely in reality, and it is very easily adjusted if it does.

5. Crop Years in Enterprise Setup. In Utilities>Company Setup, whether adding a new Enterprise or editing and existing one, the year values for Crop and Previous Crop will accept only two digits - and they will not accept "00" or in fact anything less than "40."

   For those who wish to continue using the program, the solutions are quick, cheap, and easy. You may either ignore the crop year values entirely, or replace them with a value of at least 40. In the latter case, a sticky note on your monitor that says "40=2000" might be useful. People who may still be using the original release of Lotus 1-2-3 probably have a similar set of notes.

   The good news is that these entries are purely cosmetic and have no bearing at all on the use of the program. They are not used in any calculations or any other critical references. The only place they can be found is on the Enterprise setup screen itself, where they were only intended to be informational for the user of the program. These items were placed in the original release of ChemTrak only as a reference to the user about what crop was on that field immediately prior to the current crop. When crops are changed, the previous reference is overwritten and lost.

   Exception. An Enterprise's current and previous crop and crop year are printed at the top of the California League of Food Processors Report, based on their old 1982 format. This is not a regulatory report required by any county or state agency in California. To our knowledge it has been used by only a few ChemTrak users with various packing houses, and then only infrequently or seasonally. If using the "40" solution suggested above, it may be necessary to mark these reports with a correction after printing, or perhaps use the same rubber stamp solution suggested in Report Titles above.

   Note about Crop Seasons in CTO. This issue is actually directly related to one of the key major improvements in the new ChemTrak Online program (CTO). Unlike in the old DOS version, in CTO the "Enterprise" is ONLY a description of the plot of ground itself, with name, county, total area, and legal map location. That's it, nothing about crops.

   Then, multiple "Crop Seasons" may be attached to that Enterprise. These identify the crop that was actually planted there at any given time. As each crop is harvested and the ground is eventually replanted, that Season is closed and a new "active" season is created. past seasons are preserved forever, so any given Enterprise's complete crop history may be referenced at any time.

   Also, if an Enterprise is subdivided into multiple simultaneous plots (as for nurseries, fresh produce, and cut flower growers), multiple active seasons may be assigned to the same Enterprise, providing that their combined areas do not exceed the site's overall total.

6. CEDTS. A small number of ChemTrak DOS users are running CEDTS, the California Electronic Data Transmission System for reporting via modem. It appears that when the application date is in the year 2000 and should therefore end in 00 (such as 031500 for March 15th), the CEDTS transmission file drops the leading zero in the year and sends the date as 03150 - which causes an error at the receiving computer.

   An internal program fix is not planned. As a bandaid solution, the plain-text transmission file (\freecomm\transfer.dat) could be pre-edited with any plain-text editor like Notepad prior to transmission, to search for and replace 5-digit dates (like 03150) with a 6-digit value (031500).

In summary, a few Y2K issues do indeed exist in ChemTrak Version 4.3. They are largely cosmetic and they do not impact in any significant way on the continued use of the program beyond the turn of the century. There are no plans for an update to the DOS version, which was announced a discontinued product in early 1997. Our upcoming online version of the program ("ChemTrak Online") is entirely Y2K compliant.

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