Flow Rate and Mask pressure missing

[BuzzaJim]

I’ve been using Oscar since late February with no problems.  When I imported the SD card data this morning the flow rate and mask pressure were missing from the daily charts.  The other 12 charts (events, flow limitations, etc. were all present and consistent with previous readings.

This happened on both my Mac and Windows laptop.  Examining the files on the SD card, I noticed the folder for last nights data was much smaller.  The files named with date and time stamps, ending with _BRP.edf were considerably smaller, several kB vs the normal 3-4 mB. I assume this file contained the flow data. I use an AirCurve 10 VAuto with 2500 hours total. The SD card is only a few months old and has lots of free space.

I did thoroughly clean my equipment which involved soaking hoses, tanks and the fitting at the back of the case in warm water and Dawn. This was the first time I did that and the first time I used a full length hose brush.
I also increased the hose temp a few degrees to max, hoping to increase humidity without rain. All other settings, including Essentials Plus are unchanged. 

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

[Crimson Nape]

SD cards can, and do, go bad at any time. The SD's life doesn't seem to be a big factor. I've had some that have lasted for years, while others die after a week. That's why we recommend you create an archive directory on your PC, so you won't lose all your data when they go bad.

- Red

[Sleeprider]

Make sure those chart outputs are checked at the bottom-right of the chart.

[BuzzaJim]

Red,
I do keep an archive on my computers but data that is never stored to the card can’t be archived. All other data was collected that day, just not the Flow and mask pressure. I plan to exchange this card at the DME tomorrow but really don’t think the card is the problem. 

Sleeprider,
All the boxes in the lower right popup are checked. There were 12 items on the list last night. Flow Rate and mask pressure were not on the list.  For the 300+ previous nights, charts for Flow Rate and Mask Pressure are present and there are 14 items in the popup list  I switched back to my newest hose(also washed), powered my unit down/up and verified my settings. We’ll see what we have in the morning.

[Crimson Nape]

You can find SD cards at your local pharmacy, online, or any big box store. Based off your CPAP model, you are limited to a maximum size of 32GB.

- Red

[Sleeprider]

I don't see how cleaning the tube or the method used would selectively reduce the parameters reported by the CPAP. It's odd that for the night in question, those options were missing from Oscar (12 charts) and present in the other graphs (14 charts). Even when a graph is unchecked, it shows up on the list. I'm stumped, and hope the SD card replacement is a fix. Keep us posted.

[BuzzaJim]

Sorry for posting twice.  Kind of like a butt dial. I don’t know how to delete it. 

I did change to my newest hose last night and powered down and back up.  All machine settings were unchanged. The previous hose was my original from Newbie Day.  

All the expected flow data was there.  The customary 14 charts were present unlike the 12 charts the day before. 

Both hoses were washed at the same time and there was a system malfunction that night which deprived Oscar of data that made it a little less useful for the period involved. I’ve gotten the impression you guys rely on availability of that information to assist in therapy threads. 

I can’t say for sure if the cleaning was even the root cause but the only other explanation would be some kind of machine glitch. The machine is less than a years and only has 2900 hours on it.

It’s all seems to be going well now and I’ll be retiring the hose brush. That’s just my story for what happened after the first and only time I cleaned my hose with a brush.

[OpalRose]

Sorry for posting twice.  Kind of like a butt dial. I don’t know how to delete it. 

No problem... it happens. I deleted your duplicate post.

[Dog Slobber]

Cleaning your hose is completely unrelated to your missing OSCAR data. 


The problem is likely; corrupt data, a bug/problem writing to the SD Card, importing from the SD Card, or OSCAR rendering the data. You can isolate if it's an SD card problem or an OSCAR import problem by uploading the data to SleepHQ.

I have has this happen to me occasionally. I have about 6 years of data, maybe 10 dates are missing the Flow Rate trace. The last time it happened was August 2022.

One thing you can try is deleting the day's data and re-importing.

[BuzzaJim]

Never said cleaning the hose caused the problem, I’ve been doing that weekly. This time I used a hose brush which is not mentioned in the manual. It was the most thorough cleaning my equipment has received since I got it. Normally, it’s just a rinse and wipe. 

I have verified there is no problem with the SD card. There’s no problem with the Oscar import either. The problem is my machine did not write the flow data to the card when it should have.

I was trained to be very skeptical of coincidence. This happened the first sessions after this cleaning. I need to consider the likelihood that I did something that I shouldn’t have which interfered with the machines ability to collect very granular data. Going to switch back to old hose tonight to see what happens. 

At least I’m not the only one to experience this. It sounds like once in eleven months is pretty good.