RSVIEW32 TrendX Stability

[FSEIPEL]

Me and my colleagues are currently working on upgrading our plant's RSVIEW32 version 7.40 system. We're starting to add dual-headed displays, logging datalogs to SQL server, etc.

One problem I can't seem to understand, is why plotting with RSTRENDX sometimes crashes the computers and/or causes long delays. Is there any resolution or patch for this? I currently don't have TechConnect but our consultant didn't find anything on this so I welcome any input. This problem existed before we made any upgrades to the project. Does updating to version 7.60 fix this?

 

[Ani]

Hi, I never had such problem with RSTrendx.
1) If your are watching historical trends (in runtime) without pause then it gets crashed. First press "Pause button" & then see history of your trend.
2) If your sampling time is very less with multiple pens, then datalogging will occupy more space on your hard-drive. Check free space on your hard-drive.

 

[FSEIPEL]

Ani, thank you so much for the response. This problem has been plaguing us for some time. Yes, this is in runtime, as Project is always running when our Operators generate plots. I often see it myself after refreshing/changing x axis time span. Are you basically saying to pause trend first to avoid the crashes? Most sampling is at 10 second intervals. Hard drive has plenty of free space.

I have started logging the data to a SQL server but haven't yet tried plotting from that datalog to see if it is also prone to crashing. The SQL server does afford the advantage that I can more easily plot it from other computers via Excel or even a custom web page I wrote up, from other computers in our plant. That increases availability to plots across the enterprise, but doesn't address the operator issue.

 

[FSEIPEL]

TrendX Stability

Our consultant recommended we halt the practice of 'overlaying' screens, I am now replacing each one. He believe some of our screens, having active plots on them (albeit in 'background') is contributing to the crashing. I haven't yet determined if this fixes problem, I welcome input and would still like clarification on the 'pause' recommendation.

 

[Lancie1]

I think that allowing screens to stack up underneath the active screen is a dangerous practice at best. I can see that it could lead to various problems due to the computer processor running out of resources. I never allowed more than 2 or 3 screens open at any time and never experienced such trending crashes.

A historic trend causes regular periodic memory saves of the tags in the trend, regardless of how many screens are open. The more trends you have in the project, the greater the possibility of problems. Remove all the trends that are not really used.

 

[Ani]

Hi FSEIPEL,

Sorry for late reply.
1) If you are observing trends in runtime & suppose you want to see trend befor 2-hours, then you should first press pause-buttton (available below trend), and then click on "previous-button". Otherwise trend object gets crashed.
2) Always try to keep "Replace" behaviour for displays. If multiple screens are open at a time then its an issue.

 

[FSEIPEL]

Thanks for your insights, I haven't tried the pause method but we have implemented the replace method on ALL screens, we have now 2 screens only open (one on each monitor) which are replaced when the user/operator makes a menu selection. I have not yet heard any reports of crashing. If it still keeps crashing, I may want to have the 'custom trend' screen open in paused mode. Most of our computers are about 6 yrs old and I'm working on getting approval to replace them. A couple other questions relating to trending/datalogging:
1.) Is it acceptable to have two computers log to the same SQL Datalog? We have two PLC's, and two computers (operator stations) on each of the PLC's, I'd like one consolidated SQL table with all tags. I suppose I could alternately use the RSLINX gateway functionality and just have the same computer log to the SQL table.
2.) What is the recommended solution to provide distributed access to plotting/data? Currently I'm using a 1756-eWeb card for live data and Dygraphs with some custom code I wrote, to allow tag selection/plotting datalogs residing on the SQL server (user selects tag name from a menu, selects time duration, clicks plot from office computers, and zoomable plot is rendered). This is working fairly well but I was wondering what others have done for this.