This article covers Data Couldn’t be Read error messages and potential solutions. We advise that you first start with the “General Preventive Solutions” section, but if you are seeing these errors in a particular area, check the corresponding Solutions section for your scenario.

In modern builds of MacPractice, clients have reported seeing a variety of errors throughout the software. The exact contents of these errors differ, but the common thread between them is they all reference “the data couldn’t be read” in the body of the error message:

 

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Most of these errors occur because the client computer briefly loses connection with the server computer, or the server computer goes to sleep itself and temporarily isn’t able to connect to the client.

In general, once you’ve seen these messages, the solution is to click through them until they stop, and if you’re in a soft-lock where you cannot proceed, we recommend Force Quitting MacPractice via the Apple Menu > Force Quit.

General Preventive Solutions

Recommendations

1. We first recommend that if you are using a laptop, that you do not close the lid of the laptop without logging out of MacPractice. Closing the lid of your laptop will put it to sleep, which will cause a disconnection between the client and server, thus causing these errors.

2. We also recommend not to use “Fast User Switching” on any computers running MacPractice. By this, we mean switching the MacOS user while MacPractice is running. This can cause all kinds of unforeseen issues.

3. We have also observed that if one of the above alerts is present past the timeout period (5 minutes on Build 15.18.4 and below, and 10 minutes on Build 15.18.5 and above), you’ll see these errors chain. In this situation, if you find yourself in a soft lock where you are unable to proceed, we recommend Force Quitting MacPractice via the Apple Menu.

4. Another general recommendation is to ensure that your office computers have a stable network connection. If your office computers are set to use both an Ethernet and a Wifi connection, it could be that periodically your computers are switching between network connections and thus causing that server to client disconnection.

5. If you still see these error prompts frequently, you may want to consider investigating your office’s Firewall situation to see if any traffic between your client and server computers might be being blocked. MacPractice Support is not able to troubleshoot your network configuration, as each office network is unique and may be made up of widely varying hardware and software.

6. In general, any third party applications that are meant to automatically clear processes, caches, or remove files may cause some connectivity issues if they are too aggressive, as it could be clearing out processes, caches, and files that are in use by MacPractice. When in doubt, temporarily disable any third party applications

Disabling Energy Saver/Battery Settings

The first thing we advise for all scenarios regardless of where in the software you see these errors, is to ensure that your Energy Saver System Settings are configured to ensure that the computer does not go to sleep or set the hard disks to sleep. This will need to be done on all computers in the office.

1. This can be found in the Apple Menu in the upper left hand corner of your screen, under “System Settings” or “System Preferences”.

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2. Once you’re in the System Settings window, you’ll be looking on the left hand side for your Energy Saver settings. (This may be Battery on laptops)
   
   

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   Example of the Battery Settings on a laptop. The first option to “Prevent automatic sleeping on power adapter when the display is off” is not present on desktop computers.

    

3. Once you’ve got these settings open, they will differ depending on if you’re on a desktop or a laptop. On a desktop, you’ll only have the “Put Hard Disks to sleep when possible”, which should be set to “Never”.

   1. On a laptop, you’ll have an additional option to prevent automatic sleeping on power adapter when the display is off. This should be set to ON.

   2. You may also want to review to ensure that you do not have the system set to go to sleep at a specific time every day, or there are certain UPS settings enabled that shut down the Mac when using a UPS. This could also cause a disconnection between the client and server.

EMR/EHR Solutions

If you are mostly seeing the data can’t be read errors within EMR / EDR or the EHR abilities, it’s very likely that you have an outdated RefCon that needs to be updated on the server computer. You can download the latest RefCon package by selecting the “Update Codes” option in the MacPractice Menu. You can read more about updating the RefCon in this article here:

Updating Codes with the Reference Concept Database Installer

Orders Solutions - Blank Code Mapping Window

In the Orders Ability, you may see this variant on the data can’t be read error when the code mapping window appears when posting Careslip charges, like so:

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If you ever see this blank code mapping window, this can be a result of leftover ICD9 or Custom Diagnosis codes on the patient’s chart. You can check the patient’s chart by selecting the patient in the Patient Selector, then navigating to the Clinical Ability and finding the Problem List widget. Once you’ve located it, ensure it is toggled to view all diagnosis codes on the patient. If any custom or ICD9 codes are present, you can double click them and switch the status to “Inactive”.

If this does not resolve and you are still unable to post careslip charges in the Orders Ability, you may need to update the RefCon database on the Server computer. You can read more about updating the RefCon in this article here:

Updating Codes with the Reference Concept Database Installer

If this problem persists after updating the RefCon, we encourage you to contact MacPractice Support for additional assistance.

MacPractice Payments - Payment Window error

We’ve also seen this error when processing credit card payments with MacPractice Payments:

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When this occurs, we’ll want to navigate to the Admin Portal in the MacPractice Menu and confirm the credit card reader is connected, as described in this article:

MacPractice Payments | Setting Up MacPractice Payments

If the device is listed and everything looks correct, then we’ll want to either restart the Server, or we’ll want to restart the Server processes in the Server Management App. If this continues to occur, contact MacPractice Support for additional assistance.