# Finding Tag Instance that is Writing **URL:** \ **Category:** Ignition\ **Created:** [January 3, 2026, 7:07pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/finding-tag-instance-that-is-writing/113057 "2026-01-03T19:07:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TimWilborne](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/timwilborne/32/73089_2.png) [@TimWilborne](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/TimWilborne)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2026, 7:07pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/finding-tag-instance-that-is-writing/113057/1 "2026-01-03T19:07:20Z")
Hi Friends. I made myself an unplanned learning opportunity earlier this week and accidentally had a tag in Ignition overwriting a value in my PLC. I turned off write communications to verify that Ignition was the source of the write, the used the Find and pretty much took them one at a time until I found the culprit. But I was thinking this morning, was there any type of write log that I could have used to narrow down which one was doing the writing faster? I’m more of a PLC guy, in Studio 5000 I would Cross Reference then use the Destructive column to find the Ys. Around 13:30 into this video into this video I discover that Ignition is doing the writing. [![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/8/a/8ae1f9a0ff2c2375866471601e24fe861fcadbbd.jpeg "Did I find a Flaw in Studio 5000 Floating Point Math?") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWWAw57a58E) ---
**Author:** ![David\_Stone](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/david_stone/32/79749_2.png) [@David\_Stone](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/David_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2026, 8:57pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/finding-tag-instance-that-is-writing/113057/2 "2026-01-03T20:57:48Z")
> [@Tag Reference Tracker](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/tag-reference-tracker/80999): > > Intro At ICC, we announced that, in the 8.1.34 release, a new tool to identify what resource in Ignition is utilizing different tags would be released; a feature we call the Tag Reference Tracker. The code for this long awaited feature has been merged and will be available in the nightly build starting the morning of 10/26/2023. The [original request for this feature](https://inductiveautomation.canny.io/ignition-features-and-ideas/p/tags-cross-reference) was created a little over 9 years ago and there were multiple variations of what people were looking for this feature to be. We … Is this the kind of thing you are meaning? ---
**Author:** ![TimWilborne](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/timwilborne/32/73089_2.png) [@TimWilborne](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/TimWilborne)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2026, 9:11pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/finding-tag-instance-that-is-writing/113057/3 "2026-01-03T21:11:28Z")
It certainly does sound like it. I’ll give it a whirl Monday. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![TimWilborne](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/timwilborne/32/73089_2.png) [@TimWilborne](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/TimWilborne)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2026, 10:49pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/finding-tag-instance-that-is-writing/113057/4 "2026-01-08T22:49:37Z")
Hi David. That got me much closer and definitely equipped me with some better methods that I could have used to verify that the tag write was coming from Ignition, especially the Reference Log count. I struggled a little bit with the Locate on the Active Subscriptions. How is it supposed to work? I right clicked the instances in the Active Subscriptions and it didn’t appear to do anything. Here is a clip with some details of what I did. [![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/1/5/152d85e3cc3c37c9db59265ed589cebf0be600cb.jpeg "Ignition Tag Diagnostics: Identifying What's Writing to Your PLC") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4wQsDc7F4o) ---
**Author:** ![pturmel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pturmel/32/3295_2.png) [@pturmel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pturmel)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2026, 10:52pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/finding-tag-instance-that-is-writing/113057/5 "2026-01-08T22:52:51Z")
Unfortunately, the tag reference tracker is focused on _subscriptions_, which come from bindings. You probably need to enable tag _ **auditing** _. ---
**Author:** ![TimWilborne](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/timwilborne/32/73089_2.png) [@TimWilborne](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/TimWilborne)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2026, 11:44pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/finding-tag-instance-that-is-writing/113057/6 "2026-01-08T23:44:03Z")
Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a try. ---
**Author:** ![Chris\_Bingham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Chris\_Bingham](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Chris_Bingham)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2026, 7:50pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/finding-tag-instance-that-is-writing/113057/7 "2026-01-09T19:50:17Z")
Additional built-in (8.1) tools: - [Find/Replace](https://www.docs.inductiveautomation.com/docs/8.1/platform/designer/find-and-replace) (Designer --\> Edit --\> Find/Replace): Allows you to search for any string within the selected targets. If your tag write is occurring from within a script on a View, you can search All Views. You can also search event scripts on the gateway, or within other tags, etc. Of course, a script might be dynamically building the tag path via variable substitution or using relative tag references, so a full tag path might not be found. In those cases, consider using [Wildcards](https://www.docs.inductiveautomation.com/docs/8.1/platform/designer/find-and-replace#wildcards) in your search to help you to identify the source. - [Tag Report Tool](https://www.docs.inductiveautomation.com/docs/8.1/platform/tags/tag-report-tool) (Designer --\> Tag Browser --\> More Options --\> Tag Report Tool): Handy for searching for specific properties across all (or some) of your tags (of a single provider). For example, you might have multiple tags are configured to the same OPC Item Path. Using Tag Report Tool, you can query for all tags which have a OPC Item Path matching your search pattern. The tool struggles a bit with complicated & nested properties (UDT parameters, alarm configurations, etc.) but is very powerful for most purposes. ---
**Author:** ![TimWilborne](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/timwilborne/32/73089_2.png) [@TimWilborne](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/TimWilborne)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2026, 2:56pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/finding-tag-instance-that-is-writing/113057/8 "2026-01-10T14:56:54Z")
I hadn’t played with the Tag Report. Thanks for the top