SUMMARY

Industrial Graphics that have been added to Application Objects are not displaying values for attributes when the values to be displayed are relative references like me.attribute. However, the direct references like objectname.attribute work.

APPLIES TO

• InTouch for System Platform

SOLUTION

This issue is potentially caused by an earlier unsuccessful deployment.  It can be resolved by completing the following steps to force a recompile of the InTouch application:

1. Close the InTouch ViewApp and cascade undeploy the ViewEngine from the IDE.

2. Log on the target InTouch node and remove the folders and files in the following folders:
   • C:\ProgramData\ArchestrA\ManagedApp
   • C:\Program Files (x86)\ArchestrA\Framework\Bin\
   • C: \ProgramData\ArchestrA\Cache\PBRefCache.bin

3. Redeploy the ViewEngine and InTouch ViewApp

4. Launch the application in WindowViewer again and the issue gets resolved.

SUMMARY

It is possible to encounter an issue with all the default widgets on the server like Web_Browser and Carousel. When loading the Web_Browser widget, only an IP address is shown. When loading an instance of the Web_Browser widget separately on a different test InTouchViewApp, it loads a RedX with an “Empty” text displayed. Same red X is shown on the Carousel widget.

The following message appears in the OCMC logs:

Error: General load failure: System.IO.EndOfStreamException: Unable to read beyond the end of the stream.

APPLIES TO

• InTouch HMI 2020 R2 P01
• Operations Management Interface 2020 R2 P01

SOLUTION

This issue is caused by having OCL 22.1 ( Operations Control Logger ) installed. To resolve the issue, perform the following steps on each machine with OCL 22.1 and InTouch installed:

1. Open File Explorer.  Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\ArchestrA.  Find Dbghelp.dll and rename it to Dbghelp.dll.old

2. Open a separate File Explorer window.  Navigate to this folder: C:\Windows\System32.  Find dbghelp.dll and copy the file.

3. Navigate back to this folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\ArchestrA.  Paste dbghelp.dll into this folder.

4. Reboot the server.

5. Open InTouch HMI Application Manager or System Platform IDE.  Find the View App that had the issue before and test if the widget is working.

6. If everything looks good, the Dbghelp.dll.old file in C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\ArchestrA can be deleted.

7. Double check that the ViewApp still works after deleting the old file.

SUMMARY

When looking the files sizes of the InTouch Historical Log (.LGH and .IDX) files, they are noticeably larger for the 2023 and 2023 R2 version compared the previous versions.

APPLIES TO

• InTouch HMI 2023 and newer

EXPLANATION

With InTouch 2023 the design/ format of .LGH and .IDX files has significantly increased to accommodate the following changes:

• The maximum number of tags allowed has been increased to 100K. The previous tag limit was 60K.
• For older LGH files, the tag length was limited to 32 characters. The new LGH files support a tag length of 128 characters.
• From InTouch 2023 onwards, the extended tag structure now supports tag name, tag description, and remote tag length up to 128, 160, and 254 characters, respectively.

SUMMARY

When launching the InTouch Web Client, it is possible to encounter the following error in your default web browser:

HTTP Error 503: The service is unavailable

This tech note provides the steps to resolve this error.

APPLIES TO

• InTouch Web Client

SOLUTION

• This error can be caused by enabling the Web Server while WindowMaker and/or WindowViewer are still open.
• This will usually occur if the Web Server is enabled by using the Web Client fast switch button from WindowMaker while the Web Server is disabled.
• When this happens, a popup message will ask if you want to enable the web server.  Clicking “Yes” will enable the server and switch to your computer’s default browser, but will result in the error message above.
• To resolve the issue, completely close down WindowMaker and WindowViewer.  Re-launch WindowViewer and try to connect to the Web Client again.

SUMMARY

Cross-node encrypted SuiteLink requires both nodes to be joined to the same System Management Server (SMS) server. In some cases, even if SMS is properly configured, a system may encounter the following error and the encrypted SuiteLink connection will fail, even though a Troubleshooting Scan within the AVEVA Common Service Portal may return without errors:
[Multi-Line Message] - Encrypted SuiteLink connection cannot be established.
Problem: SuiteLink connection request was received from un-authorized node <CLIENTNODENAME>.
Possible Reason: Security configuration on node <CLIENTNODENAME> is incorrect.
Possible Solution(s):
1. Ensure the node designated to be the 'System Management Server' is available.
2. ***[IMPORTANT]*** Ensure your applications are using the same 'System Management Server'.
3. For each node, launch the Configurator Utility -> Select the Management Server -> Press Configure -> Verify that the workflow configured successfully (Green configured Icon)
4. For additional details, refer to the 'Security Configuration' section in the product documentation.

CAUSE

This issue can be caused by the suggested problems in the error itself; however, in this case, if the computer name contains lowercase characters, the above error and symptoms may be encountered.

In Platform Common Services (PCS) 7.0.1, the current implementation assumes the following:

1. Letters in the Windows hostname (or Computer Name, or NetBIOS name) must be all capital letters (numbers are permitted)
2. The hostname part of the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) must be the same as the short hostname

APPLIES TO

• Platform Common Services (PCS) v7.0.1
• Communication Drivers Pack (CDP) 2023
• Application Server 2023
• InTouch 2023
• Historian 2023

RESOLUTION

Rename the computer hostname with all capital letters (A-Z) and numbers (0-9), using a total of 15 or less characters and avoiding Unicode characters.

• All numeric is not a valid name.
• Hyphens and longer names are permitted, but this is not recommended, as not all software and systems support this.

This is considered a best practice, as computer names in certificates are case sensitive, but DNS names are not case sensitive. A hostname query against a computer with a lower-cased name can return an all-caps result, which will not be an exact match when compared to the name in that computer’s certificate due to the difference in casing.

SUMMARY

When working in the Tagname Dictionary in an InTouch HMI application, clicking the Select button should cause the Tag Browser popup window to appear, allowing the user to browse the existing tags in the application.

Under certain conditions, the popup window will not appear after clicking Select and the WindowMaker application will freeze up, forcing the user to shut down the application.

This issue is caused when WindowMaker attempts to open the Tag Browser on a second monitor when no second monitor is present.  This tech note will provide the steps to resolve the issue.

APPLIES TO

• InTouch HMI (WindowMaker)

PROCEDURE

1. In WindowMaker, open the Tagname Dictionary window and click Select.

2. Press the following sequence of keys, one at a time:
   • • Alt
     • Spacebar
     • “m”
     • Arrow Down

3. Use the mouse to move the cursor to the primary monitor and click on the screen.  The Tag Browser window should appear on the primary monitor.

SUMMARY

This Tech Note details the procedure to identify and clear APPCRASH events that appear in the Windows Event Viewer for System Platform components. This can impact any component of System Platform and look like the following:

• Windows Error Reporting: Event Name: APPCRASH P1: GDIWebServer.exe
• Windows Error Reporting: Event Name: APPCRASH P1: AELicServer.EXE
• Windows Error Reporting: Event Name: APPCRASH P1: aahIDAS.EXE
• Windows Error Reporting: Event Name: APPCRASH P1: aahStorage.exe

This issue is caused when AVEVA services that are running rely on other AVEVA services that have been stopped. For example, when performing a software install, such as a Service Pack or Patch upgrade,  “Stop Services” is selected to allow the installation to continue.  If some AVEVA services stay on “Running” with other AVEVA services on “Stopped”, the running services may generate the APPCRASH errors.

These APPCRASH events repeat in the same pattern along with other Windows related APPCRASH events. It is also worth noting that at times excessively large logs error reports can continue to report into Event Viewer because the log files failed to “report”, usually in instances where the machine is not connected to the internet. However, the projects/applications can still be developed and ran at runtime, data values continue to come in, alarms can be acknowledged, etc. The system continues to run as expected. Additionally, LogViewer in OCMC/SMC does not report any errors associated with the APPCRASH events.

APPLIES TO

• Application Server
• InTouch HMI
• Historian Server
• Historian Clients
• License Server/Manager

PROCEDURE

To correct the issue, perform a Disk Cleanup and clear the Windows Error Reporting Queue.

1. Open Windows Explorer.  Right-click on the C: drive and select Properties.

2. Under the General tab, select Disk Cleanup.

3. Check Windows error repots and feedback diagnostics, the click OK.

4. APPCRASH events should stop appearing in the Windows Event Viewer logs.

SUMMARY

During deployment of an InTouchView app, it is normal behavior for an orange icon to appear over the InTouchView app instance which indicates that the files and folders are still being copied over to the remote machine.

You may experience an issue where this orange icon does not clear up on its own.

During a normal deployment process, a share on the GR node will be created in Computer Management –> Shared Folders –> Shares: C:\ProgramFiles\ArchestrA\Framework\FileRepository\<GalaxyName>\ObjectFileStorage\<$ViewAppName>\Deployed_xxxx

Once the deployment finishes, the folder will automatically stop sharing.

Occasionally, this process may become out of sync and the folder may not stop sharing on it’s own, causing the orange icon to never go away. When this occurs, the InTouchViewApp is inaccessible on the remote node.

This tech note will provide steps to try and correct this “orange icon” issue by manually unsharing the InTouchViewApp folder.

PROCEDURE

1. On the GR node, navigate to Computer Management –> Shared Folders –> Shares and find the following folder: C:\ProgramFiles\ArchestrA\Framework\FileRepository\<GalaxyName>\ObjectFileStorage\<$ViewAppName>\Deployed_xxxx (find the most recent/newest XXXX version)

NOTE: If this folder is not still being shared, this solution will not be relevant.

2. After confirming the above folder still exists, open the IDE and undeploy the InTouchViewApp instance.

3. Navigate back to the shared folder from step 1. Right-click this folder and choose Stop Sharing.

4. Redeploy the InTouchViewApp instance and see if this clears the issue up.

SUMMARY

Each time an operator needs to view their Intouch application at runtime, they must manually run the InTouch WindowViewer application. This technote will discuss how to use a batch file to automatically run the application each time Windows is restarted.  There is an optional step in which you may delay opening your Intouch application, to allow time for other applications to run first.

APPLIES TO

• InTouch HMI
• InTouch for System Platform

PROCEDURE

Launching the WindowViewer executable using a batch file

1. Open Notepad from the Windows Start Menu > Windows Accessories folder or perform a Windows Search for Notepad.

2. In a blank .txt file, type or copy and paste:

   start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Wonderware\InTouch\view.exe"

(Optional) To allow a delayed start of the InTouch application (for other applications to start first), you may INSTEAD use the following scripting:

echo "DO NOT CLOSE THIS. INTOUCH IS STARTING..."
timeout /t 5 /nobreak
start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Wonderware\InTouch\view.exe"

3. Choose a name to save the file as and add the extension .bat at the end of that name. Press Save.

Note: You may need to disable Hide file extensions for known types in Windows Explorer options to change the extension of the filename.

4. Paste the batch file in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.

Note: The ProgramData folder is hidden by default and it may be necessary to check the Hidden Items checkbox in the File Explorer View tab to see it.

5. Reboot the PC and verify the application automatically launches upon reboot.

OPTIONAL: Launching WindowViewer using a batch file and shortcut to avoid low memory error messages

In some versions of Intouch 2014 R2 SP1 or later, you may come across an error message stating “Your system may be running low on memory. Continue?”

The steps in this section are used to eliminate the Memory Manager error message by running the auto start batch file using administrative privileges.

Note: You may need to turn off User Account Control in Windows Settings to automatically launch Window Viewer when running it with administrative privileges.

1. Move the previously created batch file out of the Startup folder and into another location where it will not be deleted. Right-click the .bat file and select Create shortcut. Move the new shortcut file into the folder at C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.

2. Right-click the shortcut and select Properties. On the Shortcut tab, select Advanced.

3. Under Advanced Properties, check the box titled Run as administrator. Press OK.

5. Reboot the PC and verify the application automatically launches upon reboot.

SUMMARY

With managed InTouch applications, it is possible to encounter a situation where all of the industrial graphics used in the application appear as red “X”s with the error “Graphic Not Available” even though the graphics exist in the Graphic Toolbox.  This tech note will provide two methods to resolve this issue.

APPLIES TO

• InTouch for System Platform

PROCEDURE

Method 1 – Associate Industrial Graphics

1. Open the IDE.
2. Right click on the derived template for the InTouchView application and select Associate Galaxy Graphics.

3. In the popup window that appears, make sure the Include all galaxy graphics with this application checkbox is selected, then click OK.

4. Re-deploy the application. If the problem persists, try Method 2 below.

Method 2 – Re-saving Industrial Graphics

1. Open the IDE.
2. In the Graphic Toolbox, double click on one the graphics that is not showing in the application to open it in the Graphic Editor.

3. Make a small change in the symbol (e.g. move one element 1 pixel to the right, then move it back). This will enable the Save function for the symbol.
4. Save and Close the symbol. Make sure the symbol is checked in to the galaxy.
5. Re-deploy the application. If this resolves the issue for that symbol, repeat the process of any other symbols as needed.