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37  How-To

This reference section gives simple instructions on technical procedures.

37.1  Disable Sleep mode

When a computer is not being used for a while, some computers are configured to go into “Sleep mode", “Standby mode", “Hibernation", or some other power saving state. While this is good for conserving energy, it can be bad for External A/V testing. Because the T.O.V.A. test does not use the computer or mouse, some computers can fall asleep during a test, which will essentially ruin the results of the test.

The T.O.V.A. tries to counteract this, but it does not work on all computers. To be on the safe side, we recommend that you disable Sleep Mode on any T.O.V.A. computer where you intend to do External A/V testing. If that’s not possible, the computer’s sleep mode should wait at least an hour.

Note: How to disable Sleep Mode on different computers will vary somewhat. If the instructions below don’t work for you, contact your computer’s manufacturer.

  1. Click the Start button and type ‘Power’.
  2. From the results, choose ‘Power options’ or ‘Power and sleep settings’.
  3. Navigate to sleep settings and, for when to go to sleep, choose ‘Never’. Note: You may have to disable this in multiple places (‘Plugged in’, ‘On battery’, etc.).
  4. If necessary, save your changes.

37.2  Find your data

Having trouble finding your T.O.V.A. data? There are a few possible explanations for this:

37.3  Manually update the T.O.V.A.

With the T.O.V.A. ’s Automatic Update, we’ve tried to make keeping your T.O.V.A. up to date with the latest features and fixes easier than ever. However, sometimes automatic update will fail (Did you really close all your programs before updating?), and in this case you may want to update your T.O.V.A. manually.

A manual update works just as well as the automatic one, with one caveat: You must have access to Administrator permissions. Here’s how you do it:

  1. Find the latest update. Go to https://www.tovatest.com/downloads/ and enter your T.O.V.A. USB device ’s serial number. This will give you the installer (a ‘.pkg’ or ‘.exe’ file), and you should download it to somewhere you can find it.

    Note: The installer is a large file (about 300 MB at the moment). If you have problems downloading it, you might need to find a computer with a better internet connection. Download the installer from a more reliable connection, copy it to a flash drive, and bring it to your T.O.V.A. computer. If you do not have the flash drive included with your T.O.V.A. , you can order one from The TOVA Company.

  2. Exit the T.O.V.A. and any other applications that are running (You should do this before installing any application, really).
  3. Run the installer. Just like the first time you installed the T.O.V.A. , it may confirm/request Admin permissions, ask you to accept the license, etc.
  4. Once finished, you may run the T.O.V.A. .

That’s it! The good thing about a manual update is that it may make apparent what error was causing the update to fail before, and perhaps even let you correct it.

37.4  Migrate the T.O.V.A. to a new computer

Transferring the T.O.V.A. from one computer to another is not really a problem. The T.O.V.A. software can be installed on multiple computers, even if you only have one T.O.V.A. device, and there are no copy restrictions.

T.O.V.A. technical support can answer questions about your specific computers, but here are some general steps:

  1. First, review our T.O.V.A. computer requirements (section 11.9), to make sure the T.O.V.A. will work as you expect on the new computer.
  2. Next, download the latest version of the T.O.V.A. software by entering your serial number here: https://www.tovatest.com/downloads/.
  3. Install the T.O.V.A. software on the new computer, making sure to configure the hardware setup (EAV or PTE) as appropriate to this computer. See ‘Installing the T.O.V.A. ’ (section 11.12) for more information.
  4. The last part of the install is connecting the T.O.V.A. hardware (section 15). Make sure to set up the hardware as shown in the installation guide. Your T.O.V.A. test credits are stored on the T.O.V.A. USB device (the black box), so they will come with it to the new computer.
  5. Your T.O.V.A. subjects and sessions are stored in a database on the old computer. To move it, you will need to back up that data from the old computer and then import it on the new computer.
    1. On the old computer, run the T.O.V.A. application and click ‘Help’ > ‘Back up database...’. Follow the steps to save all your subjects and sessions to a .tova file.
    2. Copy that file to the new computer. You can copy the backup file to a thumb drive, a shared path on the network, or even a cloud-synced folder.
    3. On the new computer, double-click the .tova file to import the data into the new database.

For more specifics or if you run into trouble along the way, please send us a tech support request (section 29) on the old computer and on the new one, or just give us a call.

37.5  Modify Admin Preferences

There are certain T.O.V.A. preferences that require administrative privileges to access. If you are unable to access Admin preferences in the T.O.V.A. , you should run T.O.V.A. Admin Settings with administrative privileges.

Note: Some preferences that can be modified in the T.O.V.A. application are not accessible in T.O.V.A. Admin settings.

The easiest way is from ‘Change Admin settings’ button in the T.O.V.A. ’s Preferences window.

  1. From the Preferences window, click ‘Change Admin settings’. The Preferences window will close.
  2. When prompted, enter your username/password or agree to allow this program to make changes on your computer (Figure 83).
  3. T.O.V.A. Admin Settings will open, allowing you to modify the Admin settings. When you’ve finished, click ‘Save’ to restart the T.O.V.A. application with the new settings.

You can also use the separate T.O.V.A. Admin Settings application:

UAC message on Windows 7
  1. Quit the T.O.V.A. application.
  2. Find ‘T.O.V.A. Admin Settings’ in your Start menu (Windows) or Finder (macOS). On macOS 10.15 or later, use TOVA_Admin_Settings.command and blind-type your password when prompted.
  3. When prompted, enter your username/password or agree to allow this program to make changes on your computer (Figure 83).
  4. T.O.V.A. Admin Settings will open, allowing you to modify Admin preferences.
  5. When you’ve finished, click ‘Save’ and run the T.O.V.A. normally.

37.6  Move the T.O.V.A. database

Moving your database is pretty easy in the T.O.V.A. .

First, ALWAYS back up your T.O.V.A. database (section 23) before attempting any procedure like this. Then simply change your database path, and the T.O.V.A. will offer to move the database for you. Here’s how it works:

Note: To move your database to a different computer, simply back up your database (section 23), copy the backup file to the new computer, and import it (section 24).

You can still always move your database as you previously could in the T.O.V.A. . This includes these main steps:

  1. Exit the T.O.V.A. application.
  2. Discover the current location of your database.
  3. Move the folder to the new location
  4. Point the T.O.V.A. to the new location of the database.

If you’re not comfortable with these steps, contact T.O.V.A. technical support for assistance. We are happy to help.

37.6.1  Notes on choosing a database path

There are a few things to remember when choosing a different database location:

37.7  Reassign a session to a different subject

Sometimes you may find that a test was administered to the wrong subject. The T.O.V.A. provides a couple of ways to fix this problem. First, a few important notes:

You can reassign a test session by first editing the session and then choosing ‘Assign to a different subject’.

Edit the session to reassign it
  1. Highlight the session in the Subjects or Sessions tabs of the main T.O.V.A. window.
  2. Click ‘Edit’ to bring up the Edit Session Information window.
  3. Click ‘Assign to a different subject’ to bring up the ‘Reassign Session’ window.
  4. Select the subject the session should have been assigned to and click ‘Select subject’.
  5. When prompted, confirm that you want to reassign the session.
  6. Click ‘Cancel’ to close the Edit Session Information window. (Note: Clicking ‘Save’ will UNDO the reassignment.)

You can also reassign a session with drag-and-drop. Double-clicking a subject will expand it to show all the tests administered to that subject. You can then click on the test that’s misassigned and drag it to the correct subject.


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