Industrial

OPC Suite Extended FAQs

The name of a column in an MS Access Database must not contain any special characters or spaces. Otherwise writing values into the Database doesn’t work correctly.

If you have deleted the "Configuration1" configuration and then click on the dataFEED configurator shortcut, a default configuration with the name "Configuration1" will be created again.

If you want to change the configuration name, you can do it using the XML configuration file. To do this, open the XML configuration file of the dataFEED configurator, which you can find in the folder here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Softing\dataFEED OPC Suite\OSF_Configurator.xml

In the "Options" section, you can specify the default configuration names.

 

<Options
  MultipleConfigurations = "true"
  AutoExpandedNavigator  = "false"
  ShowHelpAtStartup      = "false"
  DefaultConfig          = "true"
  DefaultConfigName      = "Configuration1"
/>

 

Change the value of the "DefaultConfigName" parameter from "Configuration1" to your desired configuration name. Then save the XML configuration file to save the changes.

 

The Backup and Restore features in the Configuration main menu allow exporting and importing different configurations in order to migrate the server and all of its settings from one machine to another.

The Backup menu functionality performs a complete export of the currently loaded configuration into a single backup file. The backup process can be started by clicking the corresponding entry on the Configuration main menu. The action is only available if a configuration is currently loaded. The resulting backup file will be a binary file (.OSF) containing all the data relevant to the configuration.

The Restore feature allows importing a previously exported configuration from a backup file. The restore process can be started by clicking the corresponding entry on the Configuration main menu. A file open dialog appears where you can select the backup file. If the selected file is a valid backup file, the restore procedure will start and the resulting configuration will be opened on completion.

The OPC Foundation provides the binaries needed to run DCOM OPC server and OPC client application as Windows Installer packages. 
It is necessary to install the "OPC Core Components" on each machine where an OPC server or an OPC client is installed. 
The latest version of the OPC Core Components Redistributables can be downloaded from the OPC Foundation web pages.

Yes this is possible. First, create the desired configuration file (.soc) with the OPC Demo Client. You can then access the OPC Demo Client with this configuration by specifying the  parameter load.

SOClient /load filename.soc

This parameter can be passed either in the command line or in the desktop from the context menu "Properties".

Browsing and reading values from an UA OPC Client to the configured DA OPC server work fine. However writing of an OPC item is acknowledged with "BadNotSupported".

The Softing dataFEED UA Client transmits an OPC item with time stamp, quality and value per default.

According to the OPC specification, writing the time stamp and quality is optional. 
Some DA OPC server doesn’t support it. If the underlying DA OPC server doesn’t support writing the time stamp and quality, then writing is acknowledged negatively with the error message "BadNotSupported".

 

Workaround:
You can configure in the XML configuration file of the dataFEED OPC Suite whether writing of the time stamp and quality should be transferred to the underlying DA OPC server or not.

To do this, please open the XML configuration file:
C:\ProgramData\Softing\dataFEED OPC Suite\<Configurationname>\OSF_Runtime.XML

In the "UA_Server" section, change the line as follows:
<UA_Server RebrowseTimeoutInterval="10000" Enabled="true" WriteFiltering="V">

With this entry, WriteFiltering="V", only the value of the OPC item is transferred without time stamp and quality.

Please save the XML configuration file, and then restart the dataFEED OPC Suite.

General the error codes beginning with 0x8 are operating system specific error messages. You can find a short description to such kind of error codes in the Microsoft Visual Studio Error Lookup Tool or in Internet.

Settings in the S5-LAN-Manager:

For S5 Protocol please set the S7/S5-Server-Port to 2002 in the S5 LAN Manager configuration.

For S7 Protocol the S7/S5-Server-Port should be set to 102.

Settings in the dataFEED OPC Suite:

Please restore the sample configuration file S5-PCLink-Verbindung.osf where both connections to the same S5 PC Link are configured.

Please note that the used ports in both configuration, dataFEED OPC Suite and S5 LAN Manager, should be the same.

 

Trace outputs, also called diagnostics information, can be configured in the dataFEED OPC Suite Configurator in the section Settings -> Diagnostics.

In the Trace Levels group box the different trace levels (the amount of data to be traced) can be defined for each of the four trace groups. The following trace groups are available:

  • Error Messages
  • Warning Messages
  • Information Messages
  • Debug-Messages

To enable tracing to a file the Trace to File checkbox must be checked.

Note: When the local dataFEED OPC Suite application is restarted the contents of the trace files are backed up. The backup is only performed for the previous log files when a new session of the local dataFEED OPC Suite application is started and not when the log files reach their maximum size during the application runtime.

If asked for the trace files in a support case, you can find them in the following folder:
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Softing\dataFEED OPC Suite\ConfigurationName\

Please note that this folder can vary depending on the Microsoft Windows operating system and the language version used.

The backed up trace files have the following names: 
OSF_Runtime_backup#numberA.log
OSF_Runtime_backup#numberB.log

The actual trace files have the following names
OSF_Runtime_currentA.log
OSF_Runtime_currentB.log

Note: The tracing mechanism is circular meaning that it writes data to two separate files. When the first file reaches the Maximum file size the trace mechanism overwrites the second file and so on.

Note: When the local dataFEED OPC Suite application starts it automatically renames the two trace files from the previous session as the most recent backup files. If Number of backup files is set to 0 then the trace files from the last session will not be backed up.

Attention: Please make sure that you have enough free space for the ongoing trace files (e.g. twice the Maximum File Size) plus additional space for the backup files (if Number of backup files is greater than 0).

For a more detailed description see the online help chapter Configuration -> dataFEED OPC Suite Configuration -> Settings -> Diagnostics

Please uncheck the “Validate items” check box in the “Advanced Settings” dialog. 

Select in the navigator control on the left side of the Configurator main window the section Settings -> Advanced. In the dialog window you will find the mentioned check box “Validate items” below the section “Global DS-OPC and DS-Tunnel Settings”.

This entry decides whether the item IDs from a dynamic server connection subscription should be validated or not. If no validation is performed all item IDs from the subscription file will be accepted by the local dataFEED OPC Suite application for a dynamic source. 
Leaving out validation increases the item adding speed.

 

Yes this is possible. First, create the desired configuration file (.soc) with the OPC Demo Client. You can then access the OPC Demo Client with this configuration by specifying the  parameter load.

SOClient /load filename.soc

This parameter can be passed either in the command line or in the desktop from the context menu "Properties".

When an OPC Client reports this DCOM error (0x800706BA) then the OPC Client is unable to connect to an OPC Server or loses an existing connection. The OPC Client doesn’t detect the loss of connection. The OPC Client can’t access data from the OPC Server. The callbacks for data exchange don’t get through from the Server to the Client.

This might have different reasons:

  • The OPC Server is not responding to a DCOM call due to deadlock / crash
  • The OPC Server is not responding to a DCOM call due to a bad DCOM configuration.
  • The Firewall is on
  • The OPC Server is not available due to network interruption.

The problem often lies in the user context under which the Server is running (DCOM Identity Setting). Therefore please configure a user with administrator privileges and password and start the application under this user. In the most cases this DCOM setting is helpful.

The DCOM settings are however not part of our scope since the DCOM is a service of the Microsoft Windows operating system. For further information about it please visit the Microsoft Websites.

dataFEED OPC Suite is a 32-bit application that can be used on 64-bit systems in 32-bit mode without any limitations or performance reduction.

Background information from the German Wikipedia entry (translated excerpt):
The advantages of 64-bit CPUs include an easier calculation of large integer values. This offers benefits, for example, for encryption algorithms, graphical calculations (e.g. fixed point arithmetic for computer games), 64-bit file systems, or multimedia formats (MPEG2, MP3).

Another advantage over 32-bit architecture is that 64-bit systems can directly address more than four GB RAM. This is useful for applications with large memory requirements, such as video processing applications and database systems, provided they have been programmed for a 64-bit system. In most other applications – in particular, office applications – there is no subjectively noticeable speed advantage.

OPC Server: 
Softing OPC Servers provide an integrated web server interface where you can access the exact version information of an OPC server. To start the OPC server's web interface, open the context menu of the Tray Application and click “Show Web Pages.” The “Information” area can be accessed by all users
without any user login.

Note:
You can only access the web pages of the OPC server when the server is running!

Some of the tray applications also display the exact version information.

OPC Toolbox: 
In the OPC Toolbox, the exact version information is contained in the “SOVersion.h” file. The version number can also be determined from the version of the “OTB.dll” file. You can find these files in the following directories:

  • "C:\Program Files\Softing\OPCToolkit\V44x\Windows\core\common" and
  • "C:\Program Files\Softing\OPCToolkit\V44x\Windows\bin"



OPC ActiveX Controls: 
You can determine the version number from the file version of “C:\Program Files\Softing\OPCActiveX\bin\soaxcmn32.ocx.”

 

dataFEED OPC Suite Extended

All-in-one Data Integration Solution for OPC UA Communication as well as Big Data and IoT Cloud Connectivity, including Store And Forward functionality for reliable access to the PLCs of leading manufacturers

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