Spock: Scans start slowly

Here are some possible reasons why there is a delay during the startup of a scan.

• The flag FlagFioWriteMotorPositions controls whether all motor positions are written into .fio files during the startup of a scan. This may take some time, if many motors have to be read and, in particular, if some motors respond very slowly. A prescription of how to limit the motors that are read can be found here 4.1. Find the item FlagFioWriteMotorPositions.

  Sometimes single motors cause a time-out. They can be identfied by:

   
      MotorLogger.py -x -c testing
  

  This command creates a new version of /online_dir/MotorLogs/motorLog.lis and it prints one line for each motor. This way you can easily find the motors causing a delay.

• Devices that are included in the PreScanSnapshot (for .spe files) may also respond slowly. See also 4.1. Find the item PreScanSnapshot.