FTViewSE display issues

Hi All

Working on a waste water plant where I had to develop a FTView ME application to run on a couple of PV+ 1250's. At the end of the job, the customer decided to add a true Scada, so asked for a FTView SE project based on the PV+. Hadn't done it before, but managed to convert the ME package to SE, and all was good until went to run the project and found the navigation display command would fail shortly after starting. The message on the information bar is something like... "Display command ignored in design mode, or if running on server"

Anyone seen this, and know how to fix it ??

Cheers Chris

I usually see that error when I'm in FactoryTalk View Studio, using the "Test Display" feature (the triangular "Play" button) instead of actually launching a client.

Is this an "SE Station" system where the server and client software are all running on the same computer, or an "SE Distributed" system where they are physically separate ?

Hi Ken, Is a local station...

Okay, so the system is an "SE Station", where the server and the client are running on the same computer.

The error typically means what it says. Have you actually launched an SE Client, or are you running the Test Runtime ?

Does the error appear at a particular time, like when you press a navigation button ?

Check your Event Detector configuration... Events run on the Server, so they can't execute a Display command themselves. If you're trying to run a popup on a particular event, for example, you need to do a VBA workaround.

Edit: the VBA technique to allow an event to execute a Display action is Knowledgebase document 22007.

https://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/22007

The stupidest thing Rockwell ever did, IMHO...Client/Server, fine, but when you have to consult tech notes for something simple like launching a pop up window based on events, absolutely ridiculous. That and no true historical alarm logger imbedded in SE...nooo, you have to launch an external app (alarm log viewer). Only, if you launch it in XP/7 you have to make registry hacks so it doesn't launch in the background and is actually accessible. Why did Rockwell make something that should be so basic (it is in ME) so difficult in SE?

FactoryTalk View gives me many opportunities to practice Zen.

Hi

Yes the problem occurs in a real "SE Client"... Problem is that a generic button with the command "display X" stops working.. the message in the info bar is as described before... isn't an event based load display, so think the tech note isn't going to help me..

Seems to happen after I call a common trend screen. That has the command "Invoke TND.Trend1.LoadTemplate (#1)" as the load command, and #1 is the name of a trend template. After that no "display"command works...

Have used all this previously, so don't think there is anything wrong with what I am doing... Haven't mentioned, but is V7, with the patch roll up from June last year applied

I actually have to shut the machine down to get the client running again...

I'll play some more in the morning and confirm this is the case...

Have to agree, SE seems to be hard to do simple stuff in some cases...

One of the things you have to remember in the FactoryTalk environment is in regards to commands that run in the client window versus commands that run on the client. Even though this is a local application (all on one PC), FT still sees the client as a separate entity from the server.

It sounds like the command is trying to force the server to open a display when that is a command that should execute in the client.

Its tough to troubleshoot a message like this without having the application in front of us. It almost sounds like the VBA code is caught in a loop. When it is in the VBA code perhaps the "display" command is not allowed. This could explain why none of the displays can be launched once this condition has been triggered.

Perhaps the FactoryTalk Diagnostics can provide more details on the error.

OG