PCMK card configuration = BSOD

Ok, so it appears I've really screwed something up. A while a go I messed something up configuring a PCMK card. Now I can't touch the configuration, stop it, delete it form the list of drivers in RSLinx, etc. Everything causes BSODs. Anyone have any clue how to fix this? I need to be able to use the PCMK card to test some cables I made for communicating with some SLC units over DH+.

And no, changing any of this isn't possible. I'm just looking for any idea about how to fix the obviously broken driver/configuration/whatever.

You can always try to restore you computer to an eariler date,
using system restore on your computer.

See link below

http://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/43131

You can get BSOD's when you configure a DH+ card driver for a 1784-PKTX (PCI bus) accidentally on a computer that doesn't have a PCI bus.

The easiest thing to do is to uninstall RSLinx Classic, which deletes all the drivers, then reinstall. RSLinx 2.51 and later have a default card type of "None" which reduces the chance of accidentally selecting a PKTX when you mean to select a -PCMK.

There's also a registry entry that will delete just the DH+ driver... it's something to the effect of

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Rockwell Software\RSLinx\Drivers\AB_KTLIKE

but I don't like to mess with the registry if I don't have to.

Sourced from the RA Knowledgebase.

Thanks for the quick replies. I tried uninstalling beore posting this, and actually BSOD'd while uninstalling, lol.

But deleting the registry key fixed that. Unfortunately, because it had tried to uninstall, I couldn't get RSLinx open, so I ended up having to properly uninstall it and reinstall.

It should be working now, and now I know what to do if this happens again. It's always good to know the registry keys that a program uses, just in case something like this happens.

I've found that if you change the startup option to manual the driver won't be running every time you start rslinx and you will be able to make the changes you need.

Making any change at all to the driver would result in a BSOD, so I don't think I would ahve been able to even do that. I mean, I BSOD'd when I tried to uninstall RSLinx. From the way people have talked about this, it sounds like that isn't exactly common.

Regardless, it's fixed now, and since it's relatively easy to remember about the registry key, if I ever encounter it again, I should be able to fix it again.

I know you got this fixed, but for future reference you can try these two solutions as well:

1. Start Windows in Safe Mode. Then go into RSLinx and delete the driver. Then reboot the PC and add the correct driver.
2. Use the RSLinx Backup and Restore Utility to restore a saved copy of your RSLinx configuration. Don't have one? Attached is a clean configuration that will wipe out any existing drivers when it is restored.

Both of these I feel are safer than editing the registry.

OG

As long as you don't make any other changes to the registry, editing it is perfectly safe. In fact, using an empty config using the backup restor utility is essentially the same thing as editing the registry (since I bet you any money that restoring an empty config does exactly the same as deleting all the sub-keys under the drivers in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Rockwell Software\RSLinx\Drivers\)

The only way I could think of editing the registry for something like that being possibly bad would be if RSLinx also relied on a separate configuration file hidden somewhere, and did not count on there being a discrepency between the settings in the file, and the registry, and wasn't able to deal with it elegantly. Other than that, I'd say that editing the registry is perfectly fine. I am perfectly fine wading my way through the mess that is the windows registry. It's not the first time I've done that, and certainly won't be the last. (Thinking back, I guess that sort of bad coding isn't really that much of a stretch for AB... Their programmers seem pretty damn lazy/bad.)

I would suggest something like those for someone who isn't confident with using the registry though, just because it is easy to accidentally delete something important when going through the registry (though generally uninstaling and reinstalling should fix anything you might do to the registry settings for a program).

Operaghost said:

I know you got this fixed, but for future reference you can try these two solutions as well:

1. Start Windows in Safe Mode. Then go into RSLinx and delete the driver. Then reboot the PC and add the correct driver.
2. Use the RSLinx Backup and Restore Utility to restore a saved copy of your RSLinx configuration. Don't have one? Attached is a clean configuration that will wipe out any existing drivers when it is restored.

Both of these I feel are safer than editing the registry.

OG

Click to expand...

This is the way I have fixed it in the past.

Bobbias said:

Thinking back, I guess that sort of bad coding isn't really that much of a stretch for AB... Their programmers seem pretty damn lazy/bad.

Click to expand...

You know, you got help from at least two AB people in this thread and comments like that aren't likely to make them want to help you next time.

OG

Alright, I will apologize, because that was a stupid comment. It just sorta bothers me that something that really wouldn't take much code to fix (no matter how complex the code dealing with drivers is), and is a well known error hasn't been fixed. I don't know how long this has existed, but it just seems like it wouldn't take much to fix. And in general, it just feels like AB's software is years behind most commercial software. And considering how much it costs, I just feel like your not getting something worth the amount of money it costs.

Just remember, you are not paying for the programming, you are paying for the support of software....

Again, a good point. Like I said, it's just kinda frustrating thinking about it. The only reason this sort of thing even bothers me is because I've done computer programming (nothing professional, but I have worked with everything from .net to assembly) so I have some idea of what it would take to do some of the things like fix a glitch like that. I realize that it may not be as simple a fix as I make it out to be, but it is simple compared to writing a new driver or something. I'll quit complaining now, because I realize all it does is make me look like an ***.