WinCC Flexible passwords management

Hello everybody!

Did you ever notice that if you type wrong the password set in a WinCC flexible operator panel three times, the panel disables your account by giving you the message: you have insufficient authorisation? I only managed to "come back into authorisation" by downloading again the project into the panel. Do you know any other solutions? Or is it possible to disable this feature? I have a lot of undisciplined operators here. At least I could put the retry number up to 1000 but I cannot find a setting to allow me to do this.

Thanks in advance,
Vlad Colesnic

Yes, this is is a known "funny" with WinCC Flexible.

For panels, it seems that you can simply cycle power and you then have 3 tries again. Not sure if this is consistent for all panels though.

For PC runtimes, the user gets locked out for sure if you enter the password wrongly 3 times, even the admin. Rebooting does not help.

For PC runtimes in particular, I recommend adding 2 buttons on a special screen:
Button "backup password list" - shall require administrator rights.
Button "restore password list" - DO NOT combine it with any user level. Otherwise you cannot use the button if the users have been locked out. You can however combine the button with another button and visibility animation to achieve a "are you sure ?" level of safety.

Cutting the power isn't 100% sure on panels. Sometimes it resets, other times it doesn't.

Facing the same problem we made use of the User View.
Made new screen, with the User View, 2 admin logins (yep same operator problem).
Once the password 'blocked' we go to the User View, double click on it or press enter when in focus, it'll ask you to log in, log in as admin, then you will see password list.
The ones blocked will be in 'Unauthorized' group.
Just change the group and go back to normal operating screen.
(to avoid operators making use of this, being logged in as admin, we use auto log-off when we go back to normal screen)

Changing the amount of tries is not possible atm.

Hi Jeebs, yes that is a way of doing it, but logging off the admin is not enough. Next time the panel will suggest the admin as the user when the operator tries to change a setting - because the admin was the last user that was logged on. And then the inevitable happens, the operator tries his own password 3 times - and bingo the admin is lost.
You would have to logon as a normal user and logoff again to avoid this to happen.

Yep yep, true.
Hence the second admin.

But I always try to check and see if the user I just 'fixed' is working as it should, so I log in as that user.

But if you really want to let them have unlimited tries. Just create your own password management, using the 'Animations > Enable object' option for IO-fields/buttons etc.

What versions of WinCC Flex are you guys using? My sales guy is pushing 7.x on me. Are these "bugs" gone?
The last thing I need is that happening....after convincing management to go from Protool to Flex.

I am still using 2005 SP1 HF7. Mostly because I have to support many existing projects which have RT licenses for 2005.
I am just now setting up my PC for VMWare to make it possible to run with several versions of WinCC Flex.

As for 2007, then I dont think there has happened anything new with respect to the password management.

Still using 2005 SP1 HF7 for most.
Most recent machines to enter here are done in 2007, so we have 1 PG with 2007, 3 others with 2005 SP1 HF7

The user administration hasn't changed as far as I know.

I just started with 2007 and I don't see anything different. It is a lot faster starting and shutting down.

Or
Make a program in PLC for password entry and verification.
And then KNOW_HOW_PROTECT it.