RSView32 Migration to XP VM - Tags Dropping?

Hello, I'm a PLC noob! To give you some background, I am a programmer with very little PLC experience, and I've been thrown into learning my company's RSView32 HMI environment, as well as Allen Bradley SLC500 PLC troubleshooting. I am joined by another programmer and a network administrator, neither has experience with PLCs.

We have a control room that runs about 13 RSView projects on noisy, old Windows 2000 PCs. My goal is to move the projects to new, more reliable PCs. To do this, I have some Windows 10 PCs with virtual Windows XP installed to run RSView. The installs work, and I am able to run RSView projects on the virtual Windows XP. In fact, I have one of the new computers with RSView running in the control room.

Here's my problem: When I replace a 2nd old PC with a new one, both of the new computers have problems. The RSView project window starts dropping the tags; instead of showing numbers, I see blank boxes on both of the PCs. Yet, I am able to ping the PLCs from the affected PCs. From my experience with the older PCs, this behavior usually results from loss of communication with the PLC. Usually if I can't ping the PLC, I can't see the tags. What is causing the two PCs to interfere, and what can be done to fix it?

I understand RSView is obsolete, but upgrading is not an option at this point in time. Any help is appreciated!

Firstly, what is the method of communication from the PC's to the PLC's?

JellyJelly said:

Yet, I am able to ping the PLCs from the affected PCs.

Click to expand...

Ahh, all Ethernet?

Probably a VM networking conflict of some sort. What type of PC? How many network ports are on it? We had a problem a few years back where the industrial PC had 2 network ports. The VM was set to automatically bridge and it would bridge to port #1, but physical network was attached to port #2. Somehow the VM was able to figure things out, but it was slow. Moving the physical network cable to port #1 corrected the issue. But ideally, you configure the network to a specific network port (if you have multiple available) so everything is aligned. I always make a bridged connection so the VM has it's own IP address and such.

This is from a VMWare world.

Also, check for dupilcate IP addresses and such. And are you running more RSView sessions than before? If so, you could be hammering the PLCs with to many connections and they can't keep up with the number of RSView stations trying to communicate with them. If that is the case you need to centralize all the comms to a IO server, then let the IO Server handle the RSView requests.

The above replies are very good and here is another thought:

RSView32 often uses RSLinx Classic as an OPC server. Maybe there are differences in the RSLinx settings or the driver (node) settings which may be causing too much traffic for the situation.

Did you create a VM image from the old PC or just install the tools and copy the project from the old hardware?

Are both projects requesting data to and from the same PLCs?

AGill said:

Ahh, all Ethernet?

Click to expand...

Yes, all ethernet

OkiePC said:

The above replies are very good and here is another thought:

RSView32 often uses RSLinx Classic as an OPC server. Maybe there are differences in the RSLinx settings or the driver (node) settings which may be causing too much traffic for the situation.

Did you create a VM image from the old PC or just install the tools and copy the project from the old hardware?

Are both projects requesting data to and from the same PLCs?

Click to expand...

I set up a fresh VM, installed the Rockwell software, and copied the project over. For your second question, it's difficult to explain. There are 10 copies of an RSView project that controls/monitors 10 different PLCs. But, each copy only views 1 PLC at a time, and can be switched to view one of the other 10. So, I suppose the 10 RSView copies do read from the same 10 locations.

I didn't think to compare the RSLinx with one of the other production computers. I had set the RSLinx up within my development environment first to test from there. Thanks for the tip!

Paully's5.0 said:

Probably a VM networking conflict of some sort. What type of PC? How many network ports are on it? We had a problem a few years back where the industrial PC had 2 network ports. The VM was set to automatically bridge and it would bridge to port #1, but physical network was attached to port #2. Somehow the VM was able to figure things out, but it was slow. Moving the physical network cable to port #1 corrected the issue. But ideally, you configure the network to a specific network port (if you have multiple available) so everything is aligned. I always make a bridged connection so the VM has it's own IP address and such.

This is from a VMWare world.

Also, check for dupilcate IP addresses and such. And are you running more RSView sessions than before? If so, you could be hammering the PLCs with to many connections and they can't keep up with the number of RSView stations trying to communicate with them. If that is the case you need to centralize all the comms to a IO server, then let the IO Server handle the RSView requests.

Click to expand...

The physical PC is a Dell Optiplex 3020 Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, and the VM is Windows XP Pro 32-bit running on VirtualBox. There is just one ethernet port on the machine. I do have the bridged connection set up, and the VM does have its own IP address.

There aren't any additional RSView sessions. When I ran my test, I replaced the old PCs with the new ones.

Thanks for your suggestions!