The newly released Offline Sorter™ v4 (OFS) removed the “native loaders” for several third party file formats in favor of using their respective NeuroShare libraries. The vendors that create the various non-Plexon file formats that OFS loads implement their own NeuroShare libraries, which ideally will allow OFS to load the files exactly as the vendor intended.

It is also important to note that a NeuroShare library is a .dll file, which can be 32 or 64-bit. OFS 64-bit cannot load a 32-bit NeuroShare .dll, and vice-versa. Make sure you have the NeuroShare library that matches the bit-depth of your version of OFS.

If you have a NeuroShare .dll for a file format not specified as being importable in OFS, it still may be possible for OFS to read the file. Use the File Via NeuroShare loader in the File->Import menu. Remember to check the data import options in the Tools menu to make sure OFS knows where the NeuroShare .dll file you wish to use is located on your computer.

Regardless of whether OFS already incorporates a third party NeuroShare library, or if you are directing OFS to use a Neuroshare library for a file format not specifically identified as being readable by OFS, using the latest NeuroShare library from that vendor is prudent and a good way to ensure compatibility.

File formats that do not have a NeuroShare library will still have a “native loader” in OFS, which means we implemented the file loader using file format specs made available to us by the vendor. This approach is adequate; however, if the vendor releases new software that changes the file format, their new files will no longer load into OFS correctly. Feel free to contact support@plexon.com at any time with questions.