Panelview Plus 1000 ?????? COM loss to PLC

Hello, i have a strange issue where brand new HMIs (multiple on different machines) randomly loss connection to their PLCs. sometimes the screen locks up and the only way to recover is to cycle power. Others, the link between the PLC is simply lost and ????s are displayed for all PLC data displays.

The HMIs seemed to work fine when connected via a local switch to the PLC (local IPs too). After the machine was brought onsite, we updated the IPs to our corporate network (which resides in Denmark) and the issues seem to coincide with this network migration. The HMIs have to be on this network for A/D and remote access, as well as the PLC.

Is there any kind of latency setting that can kill the communication here? I've changed the max update/refresh rate for data on all HMI screens to 0.5s or higher but that did not help. I'm not very familiar with these HMIs though.

Also, after closing the HMI applicaiton, the shutdown macro failed to complete. i waited several minutes, then simply had to restart the HMI. Upon restart, communication is reestablished.
Thanks, Jeremy

What is the catalog number of your HMI? There is a Firmware bug with PanelView Plus 7 Performance models. KB1023434

I do not recall the exact model - this was given to us by a vendor as part of a machine installation. i do believe it is a performance model 1000 panelview Plus 7.

if this is a bug, what is the solution? a firmware upgrade?

Guitarmaestro69 said:

I do not recall the exact model - this was given to us by a vendor as part of a machine installation. i do believe it is a performance model 1000 panelview Plus 7.

if this is a bug, what is the solution? a firmware upgrade?

Click to expand...

Yes, we now upgrade ours to 10.

There is also a bug in v10 with FactoryTalk Linx when using the string input enable object in your application. That has to be patched after you upgrade to 10. KB172230

we updated the IPs to our corporate network (which resides in Denmark)

Click to expand...

Wait, what ?

Are there PanelView terminals in North Carolina whose communication traffic to a PLC in North Carolina has to be routed through a trans-Atlantic cable and a router in Denmark ?

Or do you just mean that they are on a local subnet that also connects to a corporate enterprise network ?

Are you trying to use Windows authentication with a domain server overseas ?

I believe these particular HMIs do not go all the way to DK and back (PLC/HMI/SCADA are all in the same VLAN which contains traffic to our local switches), but our thin client/view node for iFix certains does across the ocean and back...just to go through DK's firewall...stupid.

thanks for the replies. We have version 9 on our dept machine for factory talk. I installed the version 10 firmware and it broke the firmware upgrade wizard because we have FT v9...i despise rockwell with a heated passion.

I've been told that someone contacted our domain controller in DK and got the priority raised on communication flow through the HMI/PLC ports. haven't seen an issue since. Does that even make sense? would the HMI lock up just from latency?

Guitarmaestro69 said:

...I've been told that someone contacted our domain controller in DK and got the priority raised on communication flow through the HMI/PLC ports. haven't seen an issue since. Does that even make sense? would the HMI lock up just from latency?

Click to expand...

Yeah, and they probably flashed upgraded the firmware in the switch "for ya" while they were at it - coz it was due.

Sounds like another case of IT domination of OT rather than convergence with?

Regards,
George