Due to problems caused by software updates on the main QuantPrime (QP) server (among other things silent incompatibilities within the BioPython NCBI BLAST handler and a new version of PyXML), a combination of unfortunate events caused the specificity check within QP (which uses NCBI BLAST and the BioPython API to access it) to fail silently, so that some primers were considered specific although they might not be.

The software update was done on Jan 12th this year (and had an impact on QP at 14:00 GMT+1), and all primers designed from that point until Jan 28th 16:25 (GMT+1) might be affected. We identified the problem on that day and immediately fixed the problem, so all primers designed from that point are safe.

All users that designed primers during this period have been informed by email. However, If you need more specific information, e.g. you are unsure exactly which of your primers are affected, contact us and we can extract a list for you. If you designed a large set of primers and already ordered them, contact us directly and we will help you to check which individual primers should be replaced. Also, if you need more specific information on exactly what could be wrong with your primers, contact us.

Again, we're deeply sorry that this problem slipped into the otherwise robust server setup and was allowed to affect the results for such a long time, and hope that it doesn't cause too much inconvenience for you. As you also understand we can take no responsability for possible damages caused by or give any warranty of the fitness of purpose of the primers designed with QuantPrime, although we make our best efforts to give a high level of quality of the primers designed. Therefore we want to inform you as clearly as possible about this unfortunate situation.