FTView ME Runtime on a PC - v 6.10 Very slow

Just wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing the same thing I am with Rockwell FTView ME runtime. I'm running it on a panel mount industrial PC and it takes over 4 minutes for it to load the .MER, and a similar amount of time to unload it if I go to config. mode and try to exit ME.

To preempt questions of why I'm not using a PanelViewPlus, it's because I have some additional applications needed for this project, specifically an SQL database and a reporting tool, so we decided to go with the more flexible PC platform.

I called Rockwell tech support and the technician told me that a >4 minute wait is expected behavior and is what he sees on his system there. Apparently it has something to do with the FactoryTalk Directory being loaded/unloaded in the background.

Just curious if anyone else is seeing this. We spec'd FTView because another engineer in the office has a lot of familiarity with it, but it turns out he's used mostly SE which I don't think has this issue, we ended up with ME on this project to keep costs down...it's just a 15 display license for a small skid.

Not sure I'd use FTView again in the future...I'm thinking of trying Schneider Vijeo for the next job...if anyone has comments on that, I'd appreciate any feedback...is it better than FTView or does it have it's own quirks?

That doesn't sound right. I've recently did a ME project running on a HP Windows 7 laptop using ver. 6.0. It's not a big app with alot of screens though. It takes much les than a minute to load. How big is your app?

I'm using Windows XP for the OS and it's version 6.1 of FTView ME. My application is small, only 13 displays and <2MB for the .MER file.

I'll never accuse FTView ME of being fast, but it sounds like something's hanging up on your machine.

I would open up the FactoryTalk View Log Viewer and run it while you're opening the View ME runtime... you should be able to see which services are starting and how long it takes between them. If there's something specific that takes a long time to open it should show in the timestamps.

What sort of specs are the panelmount PC ? Those PV+ terminals aren't exactly stacked with power... I think they're well under 1GHz.

Panel PC is fairly beefy

Ken,

Thanks for the reply...

The panelmount PC I have is running a Celeron 1.8GHz processor and has 1.8GB of RAM and 500GB HDD.

I looked at the FT Diagnostics, and I get a few messages during the time that ME loads, but they don't seem critical. There are a couple messages at Severity of Warning...but they are coming from the FTDataUpdate Utility and appear to be related to never installed applications...the message is "Unable to update FactoryTalk Directory Product configuration data. C:\....\RSLogix5.xml, etc. I don't have Logix5 on this PC...so this seems like a glitch where FT isn't smart enough to know its not on there, but I can't imagine this causing FTView ME to hold up.

After those Warning messages there are two Audit level ones related to FTViewME, and those are about the FactoryTalk Directory being updated...which is what the Rockwell tech support guy said is taking all the time. One is "Replaced system in directory [local]", the other is "Modified Properties of Directory[Local] in Directory[Local] changed [SecurityAuthorityIdentifier] from [...GUID...] to [...GUID...]. The second message comes 1 minute after the first, and then about 5 minutes later ME has finished loading the App without any additional messages in the FT Diagnostics viewer.

-Greg

Anyone esle using FTView ME 6.1 on a PC

Just figured I'd refresh this thread and see if anyone else has run into this issue since my last posting. Also wanted to let the forum know that I called Rockwell Tech support again, and the engineer on this call did a test run on his system with 6.1 and also found it took 7 minutes to load. Based on jkerekes report about 6.0 being faster, to me this seems like an issue they failed to catch in the bug testing when going from 6.0 to 6.1.

If anyone else out there experiences this and has tech support contract with Rockwell, I'd appreciate them posting here just to let me know I'm not alone, and if you can put a call in to Rockwell and let them know you want this issue fixed, maybe we can make enough noise to have them address this problem.

Until then, I recommend use 6.0 if you're going to install FTView ME on a PC. Seven minutes is quite a long time when you're staring at a gray rectangle in the middle of the screen which says "loading application" and your customer is starting at you!

-G

I ran into a similar problem with an SE project using 6.1. Eventually, I upgraded the Factory Talk Services Platform from version 2.4 to version 2.5 and the latest patch rollup. Problem went away afterwards. I don't know if it would help in an ME project

Will check into that...

DTan,

Thanks for the tip. I'll definitely check the version of FT Services next time I'm on site and see if that upgrade is something I can do on that system.

-Greg

I am running 6.10 in XPMode. It takes the virtual machine about 2 minutes to boot and log in, then FTView Studio starts in about 50 seconds to get to the open application dialog.

Opening the application I have been working on took about 2 minutes and 50 seconds. I think it is normally faster than that, but I did this test immediately after starting the VM running Windows XP and then immediately starting up FTView Studio and opening the application.

I'm at FT Services 2.50.00.0010

DTan,

I checked and I am at FTservices 2.50. DO you know what the build number is for the patch rollup version you have is? My full rev is 2.50.00.0010, I'd like to know if that includes the roll-up or not.

Thanks,

Greg