Frequently Asked Questions About
Now You're Cooking! 
Nutrition Troubleshooting
When I press the Add button on the nutrition database window, I get “Error 9 – Subcript out of range at location 4”, after which NYC fails on loading the nutrition database anymore.
This means your user-defined nutrition data is corrupt. Delete your user-defined entries (user.ndb, user.nix files) from your NYC user folder. Unless you moved it, your official NYC user folder is “c:\Users\Public\Documents\FFTS\NYC5xx\user” .
I could not find any “cheese soup” in the NYC nutrition database, but when I checked with the USDA SR27 online database at I found “soup, cheese, canned, condensed”.
NYC’s database includes all items in USDA SR27, but NYC uses the USDA abbreviated names. This one matches the item you found online: “soup,chs,cnd,cond”.
In trying to add user-defined items to the nutrition database, I don’t see any textboxes for data entry. Where are they?
The text boxes are there, but you may need to adjust your monitor’s brightness and contrast settings to see them. The text boxes are white, set against a gray window background. In Windows 7, you can alternatively adjust your Windows Appearance schemes (see Basic and High Contrast themes and use Windows Classic).
When I create a new recipe and try to do a nutrition analysis, I still get no nutrition analysis (all zeroes) when I use Nutrition… Analysis… . What is happening?
Make sure each recipe ingredient is linked to an item in the nutrition database (dbl-click the ingredient to do this). Also, you need to save a new recipe before the analysis will work. So press Save on the recipe edit window, then try the analysis.
I get different nutrition results depending on what international settings I have specified in Windows. What is happening?
This issue arises due to how your international settings handle numbers. In Windows XP, see Control Panel… Regional and Language Settings… Regional Options (use the Customize button to change number settings per discussion below).
On installation, NYC’s nutrition database is created using raw data that assumes “.” for the decimal placeholder and “,” for the thousands separator in all of its numbers. Some international number settings assume “,” for the decimal placeholder, and “.” for the thousands separator. To ensure correct nutrition results, you need to specify “.” as decimal placeholder and “,” as thousands separator in your international number settings, and you must reinstall NYC after this settings change so that the nutrition database is properly recreated on first launch of NYC.
I was adding nutrition items to the user defined nutrition database and got an error and now, when I try to open the nutrition database, I get
“Error 9 Subscript out of range merging main and user databases while trying to load nutritional database window”
This error means your user-defined nutrition entries have been corrupted, and the only solution at this point is to delete your “user.ndb” and “user.nix” files (i.e., delete all user-defined entries to the nutrition database).
This situation was due to a bug in v5.56 and earlier versions – corruption of user entries could occur if you tried to add an item that already existed in the database, and when you got the duplicate entry notification, you tried to delete the item then add it again. The workaround to avoid the problem in v5.56 and earlier is to avoid pressing the Add button when the item you are about to add has the same name as an item already in the database. Or if you do press it and get the duplicate entry notification, DON’T then Delete the old item then Add the new one – just close the nutrition database window and reopen it, then Delete the old item and Add the new one.
This corruption pathway for user-defined nutrition entries has been fixed in v5.57 and higher. So you can get the dupe notification on Adding an existing item, then press Delete to delete the old one, then press Add to add the new one. This is essentially the same as replacing the item, and it works fine in v5.57 and higher.
In using the nutrition analyzer for a menu, I have individual items such as an apple plus some recipes. The analyzer totaled all the items and the entire recipe, but the "per yield unit" button is disabled. Why can I not get the information for each serving?
That is because your individual items have no serving size associated with them. The "per yield unit" is disabled when NYC has no means to calculate it. The workaround is to put your individual items into a “recipe”, input a #servings into the “recipe”, then include the “recipe” in your meal plan.
The “per yield unit” button will also be disabled if any one of the recipes in your menu has no #servings associated with it. You need to make sure every recipe has a #servings before the “per yield unit” option will be enabled on the nutrition analysis for the menu.
I am having trouble with serving conversions while entering nutrition data. I have a turkey patty, frozen. It is 85 grams and has 170 calories, 21 grams of protein, 9 grams fat/2.5 gram saturated, 65 grams cholesterol and 380 mg sodium. I entered a modified portion of “85 grams = 1 patty”, called the 1 patty portion up and entered the data. When I store the data it reverts and assigns the entered values to “28.35 g = 1 oz”. Can't I enter the values from the portion size right off the box with a modified portion? It seems counter productive to have to calculate all of the values for a 1 oz portion by hand.
Yes, you can enter data right off the box with a modified portion. NYC expects nutrition data to be entered for the FIRST conversion under the Modify button. You need to delete the “28.35 g = 1 oz” item so that the first item in the list is “85 grams = 1 patty”. Then enter the info in and you are all set. You can make the “28.35 g = 1 oz” line the second item if you wish.
I noticed that sugars and syrups and other sweet things are listed as having 0 sugars. I know this is wrong… What is up with this?
NYC's nutrition database is derived directly from USDA. In earlier versions of NYC, missing info in the USDA database appeared as a zero in NYC’s display, and I suspect that is the case for the items you are checking. You should install the latest version, which shows missing items as blanks. Sugars seem to be available for junk foods like pop tarts but not for granulated sugar in the USDA database. This will likely improve over time, and as the USDA updates its database, we will update NYC’s database.
I keep getting “Error 13 – Type mismatch” messages when I use NYC’s nutrition feature. What is happening?
The problem may be your Number conventions in Windows. If you are using any Regional Settings other than English (US), check Control Panel… Regional… and look at the Number tab. Make sure that the convention used for decimal separator is a period, not a comma. Also, the thousands separator should be a comma, not a period. The problem is that NYC’s raw nutrition data are stored with the period as decimal separator, and your regional settings are in conflict.
Why doesn't NYC recognize individual items on menus and analyze them for nutrition during a nutrition analysis of a menu?
NYC does analyze added items for nutrition, if the added item in question has been pre-linked to a nutrition item. Perhaps the item you are selecting or typing is duplicated in your Add Items droplist, and the one you are selecting is not linked to nutrition. This can happen if you have the item in both your ingredient droplist and in your miscellaneous item droplist (the Add Items droplist is a combination of these two droplists).
When I do Nutrition analysis on a particular recipe, it works fine. If I include that recipe in a Menu plan and do Nutrition analysis on the entire day, I get 'Run-time Error 62, Input past end of file' and NYC crashes. What is up?
Make sure you do not have any quotes (e.g., "boiled" potatoes) in your recipe ingredients being analysed or in your user-defined nutrition entries. Your user-defined nutrition entries may be corrupt -- you can check this by renaming “user.ndb” to “user.ndb.old” and “user.nix” to “user.nix.old”. If your analysis now works, then one or more user-defined entries are corrupt.
When I add an item to the nutrition database, why won't NYC let me link a recipe ingredient to it?
This was a bug in v5.14 that has been fixed for v5.15 and higher.
A word of caution on the user-defined nutrition entries. You should enter your own nutrition items only as a last resort after a thorough search of the database to make sure the item is not already there. Usually the items you are looking for are already in there, but not in the place you are looking. For example, "bacon" is under "pork,cured,bacon" and "baking soda" is under "leavening agents,baking soda". You need to have a thorough knowledge of the nutrition database BEFORE you ever start trying to add your own items. Use the Edit... Find... menu command that appears at the upper left of your NYC window when the nutrition database window is open.
When I try a nutrition analysis, I get all zeroes. What gives?
Recipe ingredients must first be linked to items in your nutrition database before you do the nutrition analysis. Link ingredients to nutrition items from the recipe edit window by dbl-clicking on each ingredient to bring up the nutrition link window, then select a nutrition item for linking and press the Link button. When you do a nutrition analysis, press the Omissions... button in the analysis window to see which ingredients are not yet linked.
Whenever I open the nutrition database, I get "input past end of file". What should I do?
With NYC nutrition versions prior to 4.56, you could accidentally corrupt the user-defined portion of your nutrition database by adding then deleting nutrition items. For those versions, the only workaround is to delete the “user.ndb” and “user.nix” files in your user folder. The best solution is to download and use v4.56 or higher, where the problem has been corrected.
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Last Updated: 12/2/2013