Cannot connect to new CPE305 system

[Ozpeter]

I have a brand new CPE305 system that I am trying to connect to. I am running a licensed copy of ME 8.6 SIM 13 under Windows 7 x64.

The default PLC IP address is 192.168.0.100 and my local network is 192.168.0.xxx, and the windows firewall is off. I can ping the PLC from my computer. The full PLC IP setup I am using in the ME project is:

IP Address 192.168.0.100
Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0
Gateway IP address 192.168.0.1

All of the above being reasonable and valid. However when I try and connect to the PLC, ME responds with:

Error 8071 Invalid IP address
Error 8500 Could not connect to the device.

I did see a previous question about something similar, but from memory the response was something like "the network guy came and did something to my computer and now it all works".

So any ideas what I should be doing, aside from buying a serial cable!

 

[Steve Bailey]

In the properties of the PLC target in your Machine Edition project, you should have selected "Ethernet" for "Physical Port" and 192.168.0.100 for the IP address. I don't understand what you mean by "xxx" as the fourth octet of the IP address. Is it because you couldn't remember the actual fixed IP address of your laptop or because you're getting an IP address from the server at 192.168.0.1? If the latter, are you sure 192.168.0.100 isn't already assigned to some other device on the network?

 

[Ozpeter]

In the properties of the PLC target in your Machine Edition project, you should have selected "Ethernet" for "Physical Port" and 192.168.0.100 for the IP address.

D'oh. I had the IP address set in the CPU properties but not in the target properties. I was slapping my forehead as soon as I started reading your reply and got to the word "target". I really should have known better. Thanks for that reminder.

I don't understand what you mean by "xxx" as the fourth octet of the IP address.

The xxx was meant to indicate that my local network was class C 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.0.255, covering the default address 192.168.0.100 of the PLC, hence all of the networking was correctly aligned.

 

[NetNathan]

As a side note....I have found a few antivirus firewall programs that will block IP comms to GE Rx3i also.

 

[Ozpeter]

As a side note....I have found a few antivirus firewall programs that will block IP comms to GE Rx3i also.

It's more than that. Windows networking now demands that you have a valid Gateway IP address before it accepts a network configuration as valid. Long gone are the days where you could bung in any old Ethernet adapter and just set the IP address and mask to suit the hardware you were trying to talk to.

It was dealing with things like that which blinded me to the obvious solution that it was the project configuration that was wrong.

 

[NetNathan]

It's more than that. Windows networking now demands that you have a valid Gateway IP address before it accepts a network configuration as valid. Long gone are the days where you could bung in any old Ethernet adapter and just set the IP address and mask to suit the hardware you were trying to talk to.

It was dealing with things like that which blinded me to the obvious solution that it was the project configuration that was wrong.

Odd..
I done several RX3i systems (All CPE305) and have not had to set Gateway IP on any of my IP configs in PCs..are running Win7 Pro??

 

[Ozpeter]

Odd..
I done several RX3i systems (All CPE305) and have not had to set Gateway IP on any of my IP configs in PCs..are running Win7 Pro??

OK this is on W7 Home Premium x64. Originally my main network was not on 192.168.0.xxx and I had a separate, 2nd Ethernet adapter and hub for connecting to the PLC. I had originally set just IP and Mask in the 2nd Ethernet adapter configurations of my computer in Windows as 192.168.0.101/255.255.255.0, but windows marked the network as "Unknown" which does not bode well for communications. I found a solution on Superuser.com (Can't remember the exact answer off the top of my head) that said in order to get around this Windows needs be able to talk to a valid gateway device on that particular network. It doesn't matter what that device is as long at it exists at the IP address you set up as the gateway. Further more in isolated networks like I was trying to create it was OK to have the target device as the gateway.

So I set up my network configuration with my PLC as the gateway IP address (192.168.0.100). At that point Windows recognized that I had a "real" network and remove the "Unknown" moniker. (I think that setting the gateway to the IP address of my computer may also have worked but that was weeks ago so I have totally forgotten. Today I just reconfigured my network to be 192.168.0.xxx just to eliminate potential causes of error)

It may be that my sample size of Windows versions is too small, but I definitely had a well known problem with network categorization by windows. Whether it was affecting my PLC comms is all moot now, and I am not going o go back and started experimenting!

 

[RussB]

OK this is on W7 Home Premium x64.

With that OS and Proficy ME all bets are off as it is not supported.