FactoryTalk View-Difference between Test Application and Create Runtime

Good Evening ,

I'm working on a FactoryTalk View ME project and I have my communication path setup with my L33 CompactLogix and when I do the test application it runs great , but when I Create the Runtime , it says it does not have a communication path. What is the difference between the Test Application and Creating the final Runtime ? I thought it was the same .

Thanks so much in advance ,

When you test the application, it uses the design communication path. When you generate a runtime application, it uses the runtime communication path. I would imagine this feature (having separate communication paths for design and runtime) exists so that it's easy to quickly test changes on the fly, without having to modify your path and then remember to change it back once you were done tinkering before downloading it to the HMI. It was probably a much bigger issue in Ye Olden Dayes when there was probably quite a different path from laptop-PLC than there was from HMI-PLC. Now that everything is usually on ethernet, it's not such a big drama, but the feature remains.

You can set the path up in the runtime tab of your communications setup manually, but to avoid that tedium there's the handy "copy design to runtime" button that exists to do exactly that. Click that button, save your changes, and you should be good to go.