Advantech OPC Server connection problems

Hi chaps,

We’ve been ‘playing’ with Ignition for a few weeks now, mainly doing screen design and MySQL dB access. Now I’m trying to hook up a real device, and I’m having a few issues that I hope you can help me with please?

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop with a Trial Ignition system installed and working on it.

I have a Advantech Adam 6060 DAQ module that has an ethernet connection to a hub.
I have the Advantech Modbus OPC Server installed and running on my laptop.

The Modbus OPC Server is talking to the Adam-6060 ok. I can connect the Advantech OPC Browser and see values changing as I change them on the device.

With my default Ignition system I was initially able to connect the the OPC Server and ‘see’ the OPC tags, although I never saw valid values. However after a short period the OPC Server connection failed. The error would seem to be a DCOM/permissions issue.

I searched through these forums and found that similar issues are often resolved by changing the user account details of the Ignition Service.

However when I change my login details, the Ignition Service fails to start with a NET HELPMSG 3547 error.

Looking in the log, this is something to do with a HASP licence. I’m still running a trial version, so I’m not sure what to do now. I believe we do have valid licences so that could be the issue?

Any help to get a working end-to end system greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Malcolm
logs.bin.gz (304 KB)

OK - I’ve applied one of our licences, which has resolved the login failure, but I still have the DCOM/E_ACCESSDENIED error.

I have been through the DCOMcnfg and set all the permissions.

I did a reboot of my laptop, and now the login error has returned! So to view the logs I have to set it back again!

It would appear to be the same HASP licence error as previously.

Any clues please?
logs.bin.gz (327 KB)

Having exported the logs for the previous message, I decided to try and change the Ignition Service login credentials back again to my user. Amazingly it started up, and the OPC Server has connected, and I’m getting values in my SQLTags!

Unfortunately I’m not sure what has made it burst into life! Lets hope it doesn’t take me 8 hours every day to achieve a functioning OPC end-to-end system! :wink:

I went away and left my laptop for a few minutes.

Now when I return the SQLTags in the Designer are showing with a white X in a red box. If I look at Tag Diagnostics it says the last error is ‘Config Error’. But these were working? What causes them to change on a functional system? The OPC Server is still OK, and it’s connection to Ignition still seems fine. I can view the OPC tags available from the OPC Server in the designer ok.

Then my trial licences expired, so the icons changed to have a key on them. I re-enabled my trial (even though I have a valid licence) and now the tags have reverted to the Config Error icon.

Any help greatly appreciated please.

Oh - here’s my latest logs…
logs.bin.gz (334 KB)

Here is our OPC Com connection guide. Towards the end of the document is the security settings that need to be set. Follow the article and let us know where you are after that.
OPC Com article.doc (38.5 KB)

Hi Greg,

Thanks for that file. I had done all the DCOM security changes required.

All seems to be working ok now. We’ve added an Adam-2520Z wireless system on today using the Modbus RTU driver, which is good progress.

Glad to hear it! :thumb_left:

Sorry for the initial delay in responding.

Hi,

Well after a couple of successful days developing a demo system, some very strange things happened…

All the comms seemed to stop at around 14:11. I restarted the Ignition Gateway and all seemed to be ok for a couple of minutes, and then I experienced a BSOD. Looking in the log file shows a few interesting exceptions. I am puzzled so any light you can shed on them would be very useful please?

The SQL error is odd. I haven’t written any SQL, but my project includes a Transaction Group that I set to delete records older than 1 day. I would estimate that 10:47 yesterday would be about the time I created this TG.

The other errors/exceptions are of concern. Is there something wrong in my project? I have left a specific screen active for a long time, but that should be ok I hope?
MyRailtexDemo_2013-04-25_0959.proj (78.8 KB)
logs0425.bin.gz (526 KB)

Also, I have an EasyChart, that show Temperature and Humidity values.

This has previously shown a line graph, but now just shows individual points on the graph. The preview in the Designer of the individual ‘Database Pens’ shows a line, but the actual displayed graph (both in the Designer, and in a Client) shows just dots. Any ideas please?

Hi,

I can’t quite help with the device disconnections/timeouts, but I can help with the SQL errors: the version of the mysql driver included with your version of Ignition runs into these errors with MySQL 5.6. Upgrading the driver isn’t too difficult, this thread describes how to do it.

As for your charts, could you perhaps try editing the pens and changing the line mode from “Line w/ Gaps” to just “Line” (if it’s set that way, if not, let us know), and see if that helps?

Regards,

Hi,

We proceeded to develop our demo system during last week, with some success and some problems. Please can you have a look at the attached log and comment on some of the issues we found?

On 25/4/13 at around 14:10, all comms stopped, so displayed values were static. Looking in the log file at 14:11:24, shows an ArrayOutOfBoundsException.

Having restarted the gateway I received a BSOD at around 14:40. Obviously this could be anything!

On 26/4/13 we had significant problems with connectivity after around 10:30. Again looking in the log file shows another exception at 10:35:17. However restarting, and rebooting never cleared the connectivity issues. We were able to connect over OPC to devices using another utility/driver.
Subsequent analysis was very difficult. There were times when one screen showed the Adam2520Z Connected, when there was clearly no data being obtained - see attached screen-shot.

Today (29th) I wanted to do a Gateway Backup. This did not work via the GCU link (see attached screen shot) but did work through the Configure->System->Backup/Restore option.

There are also other issues highlighted in the log file that I would appreciate your thoughts on:
e.g.
Login problems (though the system starts fine) - 2013/04/26 08:17:09 etc.
Exceptions - e.g. 2013/04/26 11:05:56

I look forward to hearing from you.





logs0429.bin.gz (484 KB)

Hi,

I think the primary issue with the opc connection is that the server is returning failure codes for 6 items when Ignition tries to add them. This, in turn, causes Ignition to attempt to reconnect and re-add them. If we could get the error codes returned we might be able to figure out a bit more. If you go to Console>Levels in the gateway, and then search for “COMSubscription”, you can turn the logger to “debug” level. This will print out the specific error messages. It might also be useful to search for “COMServer” and set that to debug as well. After it runs for a few minutes and you see the messages, you can switch the loggers back to Info.

As for all of the other issues, I don’t think there’s anything too critical. The failure to get a backup from the GCU is strange, so I’ll pass that along to those guys. The BSOD, I’m afraid, is nearly impossible to figure out.

Regards,