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Frequently Asked Questions for Match! 3

The "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) provides an overview over the most common questions along with the corresponding answers:

Silent (unattended) installation

You can install Match! silently (i.e. without user interaction or notice) on Windows PCs, provided that the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2020 redistributable (which can be downloaded from Microsoft) is already installed on your PC.

In order to do so, please open the Windows PowerShell (Administrator) on Windows 10 or "Terminal (Administrator)" on Windows 11 on your PC, move over to the directory in which the Match! installer has been stored, then enter:

.\Match-3-windows-x64-installer.exe /VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES
This will install the Windows 64-bit version of Match! without user interaction.

If required, you can use the /DIR parameter to install Match! into a specific directory, like:

.\Match-3-windows-x64-installer.exe /VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES /DIR="D:\Program Files\Match3"
which will install the Windows 64-bit version of Match! in the directory "D:\Program Files\Match3" without user interaction.

If you would like to create a desktop icon during the silent installation process, please use

.\Match-3-windows-x64-installer.exe /VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES /TASKS="desktopicon"

For silent uninstallation, please use the command

.\unins000.exe /VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES

Match! crashes after splash screen

We have received a few reports of Match! crashing right after displaying the splash screen (no program window is shown). There are two potential origins for this problem:

Invalid reference database or options setting: In rare circumstances, Match! can crash when trying to read the header information of a selected reference database that has become invalid (e.g. because it has been modified otherwise or removed). A similar effect can be observed if other options settings contain illegal values for some reason.

In order to fix this problem, please reset all current options and settings to their factory values as follows:

Windows: Right-click on the Windows "Start" button, then select "Windows PowerShell (Administrator)" from the menu that opens. Confirm or enter the Administrator password. In the "PowerShell" terminal window, please run the command

start-process -verb runAs "C:\Program Files\Match3\Match!.exe" -argumentlist "reset_all_settings"
                                            

macOS: Open a "Terminal" window, then enter the following command:

sudo /Applications/Match3/Match\!.app/Contents/MacOS/Match\! reset_all_settings
Enter your "root" or administrator password if required.

Linux: Open a terminal window, then enter the following command:

sudo /opt/Match3/Match reset_all_settings
Enter your "root" or administrator password if required.

Note that you can also reset all settings for the current user only, by using the command

"C:\Program Files\Match3\Match!.exe reset_all_settings"
on Windows, or simply omitting the "sudo" when using the commands above on macOS and Linux.

If this does not fix the problem, you can try to remove (or shift) the reference database directories (called "RefDBXY") from the directory "C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Crystal Impact\Match! 3\" to some other place, then try to run Match! again.

Wrong OpenSSL installation or configuration: Another (rare) potential reason for Match! crashing right at startup could be an invalid OpenSSL installation. This problem can be solved by (re-)installing OpenSSL as follows:

  1. Download OpenSSL from http://slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html. Normally, you should download the version Win32OpenSSL_Light-1_1_0d.exe.
  2. Run the installer, and install the main files to �C:\Program Files (x86)\Openssl� (or similar). Make sure to install the library files to the Windows system directory when you are asked to do so.
  3. When the installation has finished, please try to run Match! again.

When running Rietveld (FullProf) calculations I always get error messages like "Unable to read Rietveld output file fpcalc.out" or "Your refinement did not converge".

If these messages are displayed every time you try to run a Rietveld refinement calculation, please verify that you are using a FullProf version that is not much older (or more recent) than your current version of Match!.

Former versions of FullProf can be downloaded from here (section/table "Old versions").

The background is that every now and then the FullProf team slightly modifies the output format of the program. As a result, Match! cannot read this output anymore and needs to be updated.

Opposite directions of zero point and specimen displacement correction in Match! and FullProf

If you perform Rietveld refinement calculations using FullProf, please note that the zero point and specimen displacement corrections are implemented in opposite directions in Match! and FullProf. In other words, the absolute values of the correction using Match! and FullProf will be similar, but the sign will be different (opposite).

The background is that Match! tries to remove potential errors (like the zero point) from the experimental data before performing the real analysis, just like stripping of the alpha2 radiation part, background subtraction and raw data smoothing.
In FullProf (or Rietveld refinement in general), the concept is rather to leave the experimental diffraction data in their original state and try to include corrections for potential errors (like the zero point or specimen displacement) in the model formula.

The "Rietveld (FullProf)" command is not active/available, even though I have defined the path to FullProf.

Please note that Rietveld refinement requires both diffraction data as well as crystal structure data. For the latter, the entries in the Match list are used. Hence, you first have to import diffraction data, run a search-match and select at least one entry/phase as "matching" before the "Rietveld (FullProf)" command becomes available.
We will modify this behaviour in version 2.1.1: Here the command will remain active, but you will get a corresponding 'error' message when you run the command without having performed a phase-identification as described above.

How can I transfer the Match! diffraction pattern graphics to Microsoft Word as scalable vector images?

In contrast to version 1, the current version of Match! does not support the export of Windows enhanced metafile files (*.emf). In order to transfer your diffraction patterns as scalable vector plots to Microsoft Word, you can use the Scalable Vector Graphics format (*.svg) in combination with one of the following options:

  • Use the open source program Inkscape in order to convert svg-files into emf-files, and import these emf-files into Word
  • Import svg-files into Microsoft Word through Microsoft Visio
  • Load the svg-file into Adobe SVGViewer, and copy it to Microsoft Word by "Drag and Drop"

I would like to add own diffraction data to the user database. Does this affect my PDF installation ?

No. The user database is stored independent from the PDF database in a separate directory. Match! accesses the PDF in "read-only" mode; i.e. your PDF is not affected in any way. The combination of PDF and own (user database) entries is achieved by creating combined index files, which themselves are stored in a separate directory.

Each time I try to create a reference database from an existing ICDD PDF database (release 2005 or later, relational database system), I get an error message. What can I do ?

In the following, we will demonstrate how to check the required settings and drivers for any ICDD PDF relational database. We will use the PDF-2 Release 2012, so please note that you must replace "DSN_PDF2012", "PDF2012" and the directory names by the corresponding values for your PDF version (e.g. "DSN_PLU2012" for PDF-4+ Release 2012, DSN_ORG2011 for PDF-4 Organics Release 2011, or DSN_PLW2012 for the WebPDF-4+ Release 2012):