ORCA: from calculation to one viewer dataset

Open an ORCA result file and vibe-view brings its matching structure, orbitals, spectra and properties into one dataset. You can inspect that dataset immediately, or save it as a QVF archive for another computer, terminal work or sharing.

This chapter walks through an existing calculation named calculation. Replace that name with your own calculation basename. The files and names below are illustrative; the data available in your viewer depends on what ORCA calculated and wrote. The importer has been checked with ORCA 6.1.1 results. To start a new calculation from the structure in the viewer, use Prepare, save and submit an ORCA input. For a complete example with downloadable input and calculated data, follow Water through ORCA and vq, including reference values and screenshots from a real calculation. For normal modes and spectra, continue with peroxide Raman and VCD. Its selected-mode workflow takes a combination of vibrational directions through input export, a new ORCA job via vq, and inspection of the newly calculated structure and orbitals.

1. Prepare the viewer and ORCA results

Install vibe-view using the installation guide. For a new source installation on macOS or Linux, with Git and Python 3.11 or newer:

git clone https://github.com/vibe-qc/vibe-view.git
cd vibe-view
./scripts/install.sh
source .venv/bin/activate
vibe-view doctor
vibe-view formats

The installer uses the checked-out source. Public snapshots can lag development; check that formats lists the ORCA importer in the version you installed. The default installation includes the browser and terminal viewers. Windows and existing-installation updates are covered in the installation guide.

Property text, property JSON, exported orbital JSON and MCD text need no ORCA installation to read. A selected .gbw needs the orca_2json utility from the ORCA version that produced it. The viewer searches PATH; you can instead set its executable explicitly before launching the viewer:

export ORCA_2JSON=/opt/orca/orca_2json

Replace /opt/orca/orca_2json with your installed executable. This variable selects the utility; vibe-view does not install or redistribute ORCA.

Keep the results for each calculation together, using the filenames ORCA gave them. A calculation directory might contain:

results/
  calculation.inp
  calculation.out
  calculation.property.txt
  calculation.property.json
  calculation.gbw
  calculation.json
  calculation.cis-el.dipole-length.1.mcd

You do not need every file in this example. Text and JSON property files are alternative representations; a GBW and its orbital JSON are also alternatives. MCD files are present only for calculations that write them.

File

What it contributes

calculation.property.txt or .property.json

Geometries, supported electronic spectra, population analyses, bond orders and property metadata

calculation.gbw or its exported calculation.json

Geometry and supported molecular Gaussian orbitals

calculation.hess

Geometry, stored harmonic frequencies and normal modes, plus IR and Raman sticks when present

calculation.<method>-el.<operator>.<field>.mcd

Circular-dichroism and absorption sticks for that method, operator and field

calculation.out

Locates same-basename results; adds a completed VCD table when geometry and modes match its Hessian

calculation.inp

An entry point that locates same-basename results; the input is not executed

The exact basename and directory establish the dataset. calculation and calculation_restart stay separate even if their geometries are identical. If the input uses %base to change the output basename, open a result file under that basename directly.

2. Open the whole calculation

In a terminal with the viewer environment activated, change to your results directory and open a property file:

cd results
vibe-view open calculation.property.json

The matching orbitals and MCD files are discovered automatically. Opening one of these files instead reaches the same calculation:

vibe-view open calculation.property.txt
vibe-view open calculation.gbw
vibe-view open calculation.hess
vibe-view open calculation.json
vibe-view open calculation.out

Choose one command, rather than starting a new viewer for every file. The conversion happens in memory; it leaves the input files unchanged and does not create a QVF. Stop the browser server with Ctrl+C in its terminal when finished. Closing the browser tab alone does not stop the server.

For a native window from a source installation, use:

vibe-view desktop calculation.property.json

See Desktop for Electron setup and operating-system file associations. In an already open viewer, the Load file dialog can open a path on the machine running the viewer. A browser upload transfers only the selected file, so it cannot discover companions left on your computer. For a complete upload, import the calculation to QVF first.

Which representation is selected?

An explicitly selected property file wins over its alternative. Otherwise, the newest property representation is selected, with JSON winning equal timestamps. Orbitals follow the same rule: an explicit GBW or orbital JSON wins; otherwise the newest is selected, with JSON winning a tie.

For example, opening calculation.property.txt explicitly selects the text properties, but it still discovers and selects the matching orbitals. If the GBW is newer than the orbital JSON, orca_2json is required. The viewer does not quietly replace that GBW with an older export.

Start with properties only

If you have no ORCA utility installed and want to inspect the properties, put a copy of the property file in a separate directory without a GBW:

mkdir property-preview
cp calculation.property.txt property-preview/
vibe-view open property-preview/calculation.property.txt

This needs no JSON conversion and no ORCA installation. The structure, supported spectra and properties appear; orbitals are absent because this directory contains no wavefunction. Merely choosing the property file in the original directory does not disable companion discovery.

3. Inspect the structure and properties

  1. Select Structure in the left sidebar. With a property file, this is the last geometry in that file. Drag to rotate, use the wheel to zoom, and press r to reset the camera.

  2. Press m for measure mode. Pick two atoms for a distance, three for an angle, or four for a dihedral. Leave measure mode with Esc.

  3. Read the Run Info card for available charge, multiplicity, electron count, ground-state SCF energy and dipole. A value appears only when the imported data supplies it.

  4. Select Atomic Properties for an imported population analysis. The result panel shows its table; the Population Analysis controls let you choose an available Method and enable Color atoms by charge (red +, blue −). Separate source method/state records remain separate sections.

  5. Select Bond Orders to inspect the imported Mayer table, when present. Display bonds inferred from distances are separate from calculated bond orders.

Earlier property-file geometries form a Trajectory when atom identities and order agree. If they differ, they remain separate structure sections. The imported population and bond-order tables belong to the final geometry.

Some ORCA blocks are retained in x_orca.properties sections without a renderer. They appear as unrendered vendor metadata, not as new plots or tables. Correlated energies and excited-state dipoles are retained there with their original context; they are not presented as ground-state SCF results. An absent panel does not mean the corresponding ORCA calculation failed.

4. View molecular orbitals

This step needs a supported GBW export containing the basis and MO coefficients. A property file alone does not contain them.

  1. Select Wavefunction in the sidebar. Its controls are headed Molecular Orbitals.

  2. Click HOMO or LUMO for a frontier orbital, or choose an entry in Molecular orbital and click Render MO. Entries carry the available energy, occupation and spin information.

  3. Change Orbital isovalue, then click Render MO again. Blue and red lobes represent positive and negative wavefunction values, respectively.

  4. Adjust Grid points / axis and render again if you need a finer sampled surface. More points take more time and memory. Orbital opacity changes the displayed surface without reevaluating the orbital.

  5. Click Show energy diagram to inspect the available MO energies.

The current ORCA importer supports real molecular spherical Gaussian s, p, d and f shells, with RHF, ROHF, UHF and CASSCF orbital sets and their stored occupations. It rejects unsupported or incomplete wavefunctions.

For supported occupations, the viewer can derive fields through Compute total density and, for an unrestricted set, Compute spin density. These are evaluated from the imported orbitals and occupations; they are not imported ORCA density matrices. Individual CASSCF orbitals can be displayed, but derived density, ELF and NCI are unavailable because this export does not establish the orbital representation needed to reconstruct the correlated density. Use a density cube produced by ORCA for that case.

Export orbitals once, then view without ORCA

Opening a GBW makes vibe-view copy it to a temporary directory, run the matching utility with a small configuration, read the result and clean up. It does not request density matrices or integrals.

For a persistent orbital JSON, you can make the export yourself. The following commands use a new directory so an existing calculation’s export configuration remains intact. Run them beside calculation.gbw, with the matching orca_2json on PATH:

mkdir orbital-export
cp calculation.gbw orbital-export/
cd orbital-export
cat > calculation.json.conf <<'EOF'
{
  "MOCoefficients": true,
  "Basisset": true
}
EOF
orca_2json calculation.gbw -json
cd ..
cp orbital-export/calculation.json calculation.json
vibe-view open calculation.json

If you selected an executable through ORCA_2JSON, replace the utility command with "$ORCA_2JSON" calculation.gbw -json. Check before copying over an existing calculation.json. Keep the exact Basisset spelling in the configuration. This export requests the information the viewer needs for orbitals and avoids potentially large integral exports. The FACCTs orca_2json chapter documents the configuration and command options.

Property text can also be converted by the ORCA utility:

orca_2json calculation -property

That writes calculation.property.json; the argument is the basename, without .property.txt. This conversion is optional for vibe-view because it reads the text property file directly.

Harmonic vibrations, IR, Raman and VCD

Open calculation.hess from a frequency run, or keep it beside the matching property file and GBW to add vibrations and spectra to the same dataset. A standalone Hessian file, including a browser upload, needs no ORCA utility. A companion GBW still needs the matching orca_2json.

Select Vibrations, choose a Mode, and use Play, Pause or the phase filmstrip to inspect its motion. The amplitude control scales the display excursion; it is not a temperature or a prediction of thermal motion. Zero and negative frequencies remain in their original order. The viewer’s mode labels start at 1, whereas ORCA’s indices start at 0.

To use a mode for a new starting geometry, enter Signed peak displacement (Å) below the animation controls and click Create displaced structure. For example, +0.10 and −0.10 create opposite distortions, each from the original equilibrium. The viewer opens the edited Structure for XYZ export, ORCA input preparation or vq submission. Each application is one undoable edit and stops auto-optimisation. To combine directions, choose several Modes to displace and enter a signed amplitude for each. Their contributions are summed from the original equilibrium in the same edit. See mode displacement for the amplitude definition. Follow Combine selected modes for a two-mode example with independent signed amplitudes, then calculate the displaced structure through vq for the tested submission, fetch, import and browser checks. The supplied new result includes orbitals and charges; its single-point calculation does not produce new vibrational spectra.

Select IR Spectrum to see harmonic sticks and an adjustable broadened curve. ORCA 6 six-column IR records supply intensities in km/mol; older five-column records retain their squared transition moments in atomic units, with an explicit axis label. Broadening is a display choice. Neither anharmonic corrections nor experimental line shapes are inferred.

The importer reads $atoms, $vibrational_frequencies, $normal_modes and, when present, $ir_spectrum. It converts bohr coordinates to angstrom and keeps the stored Cartesian mode vectors. It does not diagonalize $hessian or recompute isotope shifts. Required blocks must be complete; an IR block is optional, and an absent block produces no IR section. Other Hessian-file blocks are not used to recompute spectra.

When present, $raman_spectrum adds Raman Spectrum with scattering activities in Å⁴/amu. These are not laser- and temperature-dependent Raman intensities. The completed calculation.out adds VCD Spectrum, preserving positive and negative rotatory strengths in 10⁻⁴⁴ esu² cm². ORCA 6.1.1 writes these strengths only to its output log, not to the Hessian or property file. The chart labels the imported quantity explicitly; it does not infer a molar Δε spectrum. Leave Normalize off to compare source strengths, and use Sticks only to remove the display broadening. Missing Raman or VCD data create no plot; malformed tables or mismatched frequencies produce an import error. VCD import also checks the final output geometry against the Hessian and requires one normally terminated run. The printed VCD strengths have two decimal places; higher precision is not inferred.

For vq results, keep stdout.log in the result directory. It is considered only when no named .out exists, its input header names exactly this calculation, and no Compound or %base directive is present. Ambiguous queue logs are ignored. Use a matching named output for those workflows; multiple VCD tables in one output are rejected. A standalone Hessian upload cannot supply VCD: import the whole calculation to QVF before uploading.

Follow Raman and VCD through ORCA and vq for a real calculation, downloadable results and numerical comparisons.

ORCA can recenter Hessian coordinates relative to property/GBW coordinates. The importer accepts a common translation within 0.00001 Å, records it in the vibration metadata and uses the shared calculation geometry for animation. It rejects changed bond geometry, reordered atoms, rotations and conflicting multiplicities when both files provide them.

Try the water frequency tutorial with its real ORCA 6.1.1 results. The source format and normal-mode convention are described in the FACCTs vibrational spectroscopy manual.

5. Explore electronic spectra and MCD

  1. Select UV-Vis Spectrum or ECD Spectrum in the sidebar for a property-file spectrum. MCD plots appear as Spectrum. Several rows may share a sidebar title; read the selected chart’s title to identify its method, gauge, geometry or source filename.

  2. Hover over a stick to inspect its coordinate and strength. Property-file transition labels retain available state, symmetry and multiplicity assignments.

  3. Set Display to Sticks only to inspect the discrete source values, or Envelope + sticks to show broadening as well. Use Broadening to change the displayed envelope.

  4. Leave Normalize off when comparing absolute strengths. Turn it on when you deliberately want to compare shapes.

  5. Use X unit to select the native axis, energy, wavenumber or wavelength when available. Read the resulting axis label before exporting.

  6. Click Export CSV to save the plotted envelope and peaks using the current broadening, normalization and X-unit settings.

Source

Native X axis

Stick strength

Property-file absorption

eV

Oscillator strength

Property-file ECD

eV

Signed rotatory strength, in 10⁻⁴⁰ cgs

MCD circular-dichroism plot

cm⁻¹

L−R oscillator strength

MCD absorption plot

cm⁻¹

L+R oscillator strength

The importer keeps distinct methods and length/velocity gauges, repeated tables, negative strengths and repeated energies. Broadening is a display operation. It does not convert ECD rotatory strengths to molar circular dichroism or reproduce the temperature-dependent MCD processing of orca_mapspc. The FACCTs MCD chapter describes ORCA’s MCD files and spectrum processing.

Aggregate and per-transition MCD files

ORCA may write an aggregate such as calculation.cis-el.dipole-length.1.mcd alongside transition files such as calculation.cis-el.dipole-length.1.0_1.mcd. The aggregate takes the place of its transition files during normal dataset discovery, so the same data is not counted twice. Other methods, operators and field variants remain separate.

To inspect a transition deliberately, open that file explicitly:

vibe-view open calculation.cis-el.dipole-length.1.0_1.mcd

It is included as an additional plot alongside the aggregate; the viewer does not add their strengths together. A standalone three-column .mcd also opens without a structure or any other result file.

6. Save a reusable QVF

Import the calculation once, then inspect the resulting archive:

vibe-view import calculation.property.json -o calculation.qvf
vibe-view validate calculation.qvf
vibe-view info calculation.qvf
vibe-view table calculation.qvf

The import uses the same companion discovery as open. validate checks archive integrity; it does not validate the underlying chemistry. info lists the available sections. table lists which sections have scientific tables. If the corresponding data is present, export it with:

vibe-view table calculation.qvf --kind wavefunction.gto --format csv > orbitals.csv
vibe-view table calculation.qvf --kind atom_properties --format csv > charges.csv

The QVF is self-contained for the data imported by the viewer. Send it to a colleague, copy it from a compute node, or upload it through the browser’s Load file dialog. Opening it no longer needs the original companions or an ORCA installation. Keep the original ORCA results too: the QVF does not include every ORCA output, restart file or binary record.

For a record of the files selected and the alternatives omitted during assembly, inspect the archive provenance from Python:

from vibeview.qvf import QVFReader

with QVFReader("calculation.qvf") as reader:
    print(reader.provenance["orca_calculation"])

Without -o, a single calculation imports to calculation.qvf beside the source. Existing archives are not overwritten unless you pass --force. To refresh one after ORCA finishes another run, repeat the import with --force once the source files are consistent. Loose ORCA companions are not watched for automatic reload. Save Session saves viewer state; use import to create the persistent scientific archive.

7. Work on a compute node or make a figure

The remaining commands take QVF files, so use the archive from step 6:

vibe-view show calculation.qvf
vibe-view tui calculation.qvf

show prints a structure view without a display server or OpenGL. tui provides an interactive terminal interface when its optional dependency is installed. See Terminal mode for navigation and supported section views.

For a structure figure, check the offscreen renderer and capture a PNG:

vibe-view capture-selftest
vibe-view capture calculation.qvf --publication -o calculation-structure.png

PNG capture needs a working offscreen graphics backend. capture does not directly render wavefunction.gto or spectra; use the interactive orbital view and its screenshot control, spectrum CSV export, or the documented headless/Python chart routes for those tasks.

For a browser connected to a remote machine, keep the viewer bound to loopback and follow the SSH tunnel steps in Work remotely. A QVF can instead be copied to your workstation and opened locally.

Build and pre-optimise an ORCA starting geometry

These steps work in the browser and desktop viewer. They prepare coordinates; the subsequent ORCA calculation uses the method and basis you select in Calculation Parameters.

  1. Open a starting structure, use Build molecule, or draw in vibe-sketch and choose Send to vibe-view. See Building and editing for the optional sketcher and SMILES dependencies.

  2. Press e or click the pencil to open Atom Editor. Finish adding atoms, fragments and hydrogens. Check element identities and connectivity. Enable Drag atoms to position an atom with the mouse. Shift-click builds a multi-atom selection; Select connected expands it to a bonded group. Drag a selected atom to move that group together. See Drag atoms and selections for camera controls, frozen atoms and undo.

  3. For pre-optimisation, make vibe-qc available in the viewer’s Python environment, select Optimizer → FIRE (damped MD) or the default L-BFGS, and enable Auto-optimize. The default force engine is MSINDO; MACE is offered when its optional stack is installed. This is an approximate builder relaxation, not an ORCA optimisation. If the engine is unavailable, the status explains why and the switch turns off.

  4. Wait for relaxed in N steps, then turn Auto-optimize off. If the status reports not converged, inspect the geometry and start another run if appropriate. Freeze selected atoms before relaxing if they must stay fixed. Each relaxation run can be undone in one step.

  5. If a slightly asymmetric starting geometry is wanted, leave no atoms selected, set Maximum displacement (Å) to 0.01, then click Random displacement. Every unfrozen atom moves by at most that distance. To perturb only part of the molecule, select those atoms first. Undo reverses the change; Redo restores the same perturbation. The action also switches off Auto-optimize so the perturbation survives until export.

  6. Click Save geometry (XYZ) in Atom Editor. Open the downloaded .xyz in a text editor: the first line is the atom count, the second a comment, followed by element labels and x/y/z coordinates in Å.

  7. Select the Structure section and continue below to preview/save an ORCA .inp or submit through vq. Both routes use the current edited geometry, including the pre-optimisation and displacement.

Start with a neutral small molecule for this builder workflow. The live MSINDO preview currently uses a neutral charge and chooses singlet/doublet from electron parity; it does not consume the ORCA charge/multiplicity settings. Set those explicitly for the final ORCA input. Random displacement does not promise to fix a linear-dependence problem in a particular job. For the sampling rule, limits and optimiser reference, see the editor guide.

Prepare, save and submit an ORCA input

The browser and desktop viewer can prepare a basic molecular ORCA input from any loaded structure, including the geometry you have changed in Edit mode. Saving an input needs neither ORCA nor vq installed. Submitting it needs both, in the environment running the viewer.

1. Choose the structure and calculation

  1. Open a molecule, for example vibe-view open water.xyz, or load an existing ORCA dataset and select Structure in the sidebar.

  2. Make any geometry edits, then open Calculation Parameters and select ORCA under Calculation engine.

  3. Select the method and basis. The basic form offers HF, PBE, PBE0, B3LYP, BP86, TPSS and r2SCAN, with common molecular basis sets. The defaults are PBE/def2-SVP; choose settings appropriate to your calculation.

  4. Set Charge and Multiplicity explicitly. Neutral water uses 0 and 1; a water radical cation uses 1 and 2. The form checks electron-count parity but does not determine the physically correct spin state for you.

  5. Choose Single Point, Geometry Optimization, Frequencies, or Single Point + Freq + Opt. The combined option writes Opt Freq.

  6. Set Processes (nprocs) and MaxCore (MB per process). Start with one process and 1000 MB for a small example. Parallel runs require a working ORCA MPI installation on the execution machine.

  7. For a frequency calculation, optionally enable Raman activities (ORCA 6.1+) and/or VCD rotatory strengths. Raman adds %elprop Polar 1 end; VCD adds %freq doVCD true end and selects AnFreq. Saving or submitting these options with a single point or optimization-only task is rejected.

This first input form supports isolated molecules and inline Cartesian coordinates in angstrom. Periodic cells are rejected. It does not yet expose solvents, dispersion corrections, constraints, custom bases, excited states, Compound jobs or arbitrary ORCA blocks. You can edit the downloaded text in an external editor for those workflows; the viewer’s Submit action always regenerates its input from the form and current geometry.

2. Preview and save

Click Preview ORCA input to inspect the generated text. Click Preview again after changing the settings or geometry. Save ORCA input (.inp) regenerates the input and downloads calculation.inp; the download also appears in Recent Exports. Save it in a new calculation directory. A water single point has this form (coordinates depend on your structure):

# Generated by vibe-view; Cartesian coordinates in angstrom
! PBE def2-SVP TightSCF SP
%pal nprocs 1 end
%maxcore 1000
* xyz 0 1
O  0.0000000000 0.0000000000 0.0000000000
H  0.7586000000 0.0000000000 0.5043000000
H -0.7586000000 0.0000000000 0.5043000000
*

The input syntax follows the FACCTs input-file reference and parallel execution guide. ORCA chooses the HF/DFT spin reference from the multiplicity. The generated input contains no orbital coefficients, densities or integral exports.

3. Prepare vq once

Install vq into the viewer’s Python environment using the queue installation instructions. Install ORCA separately and register its absolute executable path under the name orca in the local vq configuration. A binary entry looks like:

[programs.orca]
kind = "binary"
binary = "/opt/orca/orca"

Use your own installation path in the existing vq configuration; do not replace unrelated entries. Run vq programs to check the registration and start/configure the daemon using the vibe-queue documentation. The viewer currently submits ORCA to the local vq queue. A remote-only scheduler registration is not sufficient for this form.

4. Submit and monitor

Click Submit ORCA to vq, review the settings, enter a Wall time (minutes) budget and click Submit to vq. The viewer stages calculation.inp and submits a directory job tagged vibe-view and orca. It calls the registered ORCA executable directly; ORCA starts its own MPI processes. The queue CPU request equals nprocs.

MaxCore is per process and does not describe all memory used by ORCA. The queue reservation is rounded up from nprocs × MaxCore / 0.75, following the manual’s recommended headroom. For four processes at 1200 MB each, the viewer requests 6400 MB. This is a reservation, not a promise that every calculation fits within that amount.

The Job Manager opens with live monitoring enabled. Inspect the log tail for ORCA’s output; vq captures stdout rather than creating calculation.out. ORCA jobs do not offer QVF live checkpoints or pending QVF containers. If vq, the executable or queue capacity is unavailable, the status bar reports the problem. The viewer never runs an ORCA submission through vibe-qc or silently launches it outside the queue.

5. Open the finished calculation

When the job completes, use Fetch & open results in the Job Manager. The viewer fetches the job directory and opens matching ORCA property, orbital, Hessian and MCD files as one dataset per calculation basename. A matching completed output supplies VCD. It also opens QVF archives from jobs that produce them. Keep the fetched companions together.

For GBW orbitals, the viewer still needs the matching orca_2json utility as described in step 1 of this chapter. Property text and existing JSON can be read without it. The spectra and properties available depend on what the calculation requested; a basic HF/DFT single point does not produce every spectrum. Continue with the inspection and QVF export steps above.

6. Check the round trip

Use the worked water tutorial for the exact tested geometry, downloadable QVF, screenshots and numerical comparisons.

For a small first test, use neutral singlet water with PBE, def2-SVP, Single point, one process and 1000 MB MaxCore. A five-minute queue budget is sufficient for this small example on a typical workstation. After fetching:

  1. Select Structure and check the atom count and bond measurements against the geometry in the input preview. A single point preserves that geometry.

  2. Compare Run Info energy, convergence, charge and multiplicity with stdout.log in the fetched directory.

  3. Select Wavefunction, click HOMO, then Render MO. Repeat with LUMO. Use Camera → Reset / fit all if the orbital fills the viewport. Compare orbital energies and occupations with ORCA’s orbital-energy table.

  4. Select Atomic Properties and compare the Mulliken charges with the log. Compare dipoles in the same units; conversion constants can cause small differences in the last displayed Debye digits.

This submission, fetch and inspection sequence has been exercised with a real ORCA 6.1.1 calculation. It checks the basic molecular workflow; calculations requesting spectra or other methods need their own corresponding checks.

Several calculations and Compound jobs

Open several explicit result files to switch between their datasets through the Files dropdown:

vibe-view open first.property.json second.property.json

For an entire result tree, make persistent archives in one command:

vibe-view import results/ -o imported/

Directory import recursively discovers supported sources and deduplicates ORCA companions. It creates one QVF per calculation, while unrelated supported files still import separately. GUI folder/glob discovery and multiple CLI arguments also deduplicate companions. Automatic scans skip auxiliary TDDFTGuess wavefunctions when primary results exist; opening a guess file explicitly still shows it as its own dataset.

Each ORCA Compound step has its own result basename. Open a step’s property file or GBW, or import the directory to keep all steps separate. An outer .out naming several steps reports the available calculations rather than merging their electronic states. See the FACCTs Compound documentation for the producer workflow.

Troubleshooting and current limits

What you see

What to do

orca_2json cannot be found

Install the matching ORCA utility, set ORCA_2JSON, or use a current exported orbital JSON. For properties alone, use the separate-directory workflow above.

An old JSON exists but opening still requests orca_2json

The GBW is newer. Export it again or explicitly open the JSON you intend to inspect; explicit selection does not prove it is scientifically current.

Property and orbital geometries do not match

Check for mixed runs, an old GBW, reordered atoms or different final geometries. Restore companions from the same calculation. Do not rename unrelated files just to make them combine.

Charge or multiplicity disagree

Check the selected property and wavefunction representations. They cannot form one dataset until their electronic-state metadata agrees.

Opening .out or .inp finds no results

Open the actual result file directly, especially after %base, or keep matching result files beside the locator. An output alone is not a full calculation import; VCD needs the matching Hessian.

Orbitals, charges or spectra are absent

Check the selected files and section inventory. A property file supplies no orbital coefficients; a GBW supplies no property-file spectrum; a spectrum must have been calculated and exported.

Several spectrum entries have the same sidebar title

Select them and inspect the chart labels and source filename. Methods, gauges and geometry records remain distinct.

A property section is greyed out

Its raw block is retained as vendor metadata but has no renderer yet.

A browser upload lacks companion data

Import locally to QVF and upload that archive. Uploading a single loose file does not transfer neighboring files.

Raman is missing after a frequency calculation

Request %elprop Polar 1 end and check for $raman_spectrum in the resulting Hessian. Ordinary frequencies alone do not request Raman.

VCD is missing although IR and Raman appear

Keep the completed output with the Hessian. For vq, check that stdout.log names this exact input; for a named output use the calculation basename. A Hessian alone has no VCD table in the tested ORCA 6.1.1 output.

VCD import reports a geometry, mode or frequency conflict

Fetch the whole completed job again into a new directory. Do not combine a restart Hessian with an earlier output or hand-edit frequencies to bypass the check.

The plotted spectrum differs from the output table

Select Native unit, turn Normalize off and choose Sticks only. Compare Raman activities and VCD rotatory strengths in the labelled units, allowing for the source’s printed precision.

Joining orbitals to properties requires identical ordered element identities and coordinates within 0.00001 Å of the final property geometry. The viewer does not rotate, align or reorder orbitals to make the files agree. Hessian companions additionally allow the common translation described above. Charge and multiplicity must agree when both sources provide them. A selected unreadable or incompatible companion stops the import with an error, rather than leaving a partial dataset that looks complete.

The native output parser currently reads only the completed VCD table and the final coordinates needed to check it against a Hessian. General output energies, orbitals and other properties still come from their dedicated result files. The importer does not read scientific results from .inp, Molden files, binary .densities or .cis amplitudes. Export a cube from ORCA when you need a sampled orbital or density unsupported by the wavefunction route; the cube opens as its own structure/volume dataset and is not automatically folded into the ORCA calculation. Native NTO/amplitude and density-matrix import remain outside this workflow.

For the full importer contract, see Input formats. For the source property vocabulary, consult the FACCTs property-file documentation.