Some reminder of OpenCASA 2 glitches and workarounds (to be hopefully solved in the future)

[Felipe Martínez-Pastor]

Hi,

Just a reminder that OpenCASA 2 could give you some problems if installed with the last ImageJ version or in some platforms (I was teaching a course and my students found them!). As far as I remember, we have two major issues:

a) The "NaN" error.

Problem: You dowload the last ImageJ version (or update) and then the OpenCASA plugin does not work (or stops working) or you get NaN (not-a-number error) as results.

Solution: Download a previous ImageJ version (e.g., from https://wsr.imagej.net/distros/); as much, 1.53k (file date: 2021). Execute it (no need to delete the update one you are using!), install the plugin, it works. Close it, try with your updated version (which you have not touched!), it works! You can delete the previous version (or keep it, just in case).

No idea why it works, but it does!

b) The .DS_Store error (Mac OSX-only).

Problem: OpenCASA 2 works, but it fails when using the Analize Directory or Multiple-Directories options (it works, but it does not produce all individual files, the summary file(s), or the video files; often, anything at all). Analyzing individual videos is fine. It seems that hidden files in the directories interferes with ImageJ or OpenCASA code for processing videos or for saving files.

Solution: Not sure if there is an easy way to visualize hidden files in Finder. You can activate it with helper software like tinkerTool or, if you are Terminal-savvy, with ls -a. Then, delete .DS_Store from the afflicted directories (and maybe other hidden files, all preceded by dot). I believe that only avi files should be present in these directories.

I might be mistaken about the source of these errors, but I could solve them following these instructions. I hope you have a great time using OpenCASA, and I you feel you can contribute, please do not doubt doing so!

Best wishes,

Felipe