Siemens TIA Portal WinCC HMI Button Removal

I am working on a system with a siemens plc and HMI using TIA Portal V13 and WinCC. I wanted to remove to buttons from the HMI so the operator no longer has access to them. I removed them in the project (saved them on a temporary screen). When I uploaded the changes to the HMI, the buttons still exist. I also tried the simulator and I had the same results. Do I need to manually un-register the buttons somewhere?

Also, I made a new screen and changed one of the screen change buttons to direct toward it. When testing it, a blank screen showed up instead of the screen that I directed it to.

I have done a lot of plc/hmi programming in the past, but I have never experienced symptoms as such. Are there a lot of nuances with WinCC that I am unaware of?

Kris

TIA is buggy as hell. Make sure you right click on the hmi in the tree and do a Compile/Software(rebuild all).

Then right click on the hmi and Download To Device / Software (All)

hopefully that will help. last time i had this problem was an hmi running v12 and my software was V13 sp1. ended up having to flash the hmi to v13 to get it to take the changes i made. problem comes and goes.

thanks for the reply. I did compile and rebuild all and then downloaded to the device (all).

What I thought is odd; I was able to add an indicator no problem. I am just unable to delete the buttons I want to. Additions show up just fine.

I do agree it is buggy! I noticed this when I could't connect or it would say it is not compatible, etc. Close and relaunch the software and it would be fine.

To also clarify, the software version I have is the same as the what the machine builder used. I got my software from them.

Are the buttons you're trying to remove on a template or global screen?

Are you viewing all layers of the editor? It's possible that things were stacked up, and you deleted one layer of buttons, but not all of them.

Sounds like a really weird error, I've never heard of something like that happening.

mk42 said:

Are the buttons you're trying to remove on a template or global screen?

Are you viewing all layers of the editor? It's possible that things were stacked up, and you deleted one layer of buttons, but not all of them.

Sounds like a really weird error, I've never heard of something like that happening.

Click to expand...

excellent point, make sure all of your layers are active to be sure all the buttons are truly gone.

checked layers

I did check by right clicking on the screen in the list and then selecting properties. Below the general tab I selected layers. All layers are selected. The box to the far right (Settings) had "Show all ES layers: selected as well. I also cascaded through the layers to see if it showed up in a different active layer.


I checked the global screens list. There is only a blank screen there also.

odd.... buggy is an understatement I guess. Playing around, I just moved a button just below to where the buttons I removed were. I opened the simulator and the button I moved showed up where I expected it to, but hiding behind the buttons I removed altogether. I moved the button back to place. I then opened the screen I made with the backups of the buttons I removed and i placed them in a different location. Went back to the screen I am importantly trying to change, opened a simulation, and the buttons are now gone!

Completely odd!

Maybe one other question someone can answer. I have wincc on a vm. most of the time when I try to hook up to the hmi, I get a message that says "incompatible." I also have it on a computer regularly; there I have no problems hooking up.

We don't yet have the budget to buy the software, so I am still using a trial. Our machine builder is a couple states away so I have no other option at this time.

As MK42 said, are you trying to edit a template or global screen? I think I found issue with this before as well. I think you may need to build a new screen if that ones based on a template.

This is an easy to solve problem, you just need to use "save as" and close TIA Portal.

Go to the project folder and under IM/HMI/ delete the contents of the folder.

The slightly harder one is when the project completely screws up. At that point, you make a new project with all your devices, and then copy paste the code.

Its not a bug. Its a feature