IQAN Design 5 'start measure' via Ethernet not showing all channels

How many channels do you have in the function groups where you see the problem? 

A quick way to check is to just press Ctrl-A, the hint to the right will show the component count for the function group. 

For example, the function group with 114 components is having problems.

Thanks, that seems like a pretty normal number of components in a function group. 

What cycle time are you running on the MC43? 

What's your cycle utilization?

Cycle time 20ms

Cycle utilization 67.29%

Memory utilization 90.50%

The cycle utilization at this cycle time looks fine, that cannot be the issue. 

Although the memory utilization is quite high, it shouldn't be a problem for the communication. 

A really basic question, do you have the exact same project file version in the MC4x and IQANdesign? In a situation where you have some new channels in the project in IQANdesign that is missing in the master module, you will see those missing channel as gray (as long as there are enough channels that do match). 

That was using same program for sure.

Haven't been able to reproduce anything like this. But I looked at the original post again and saw that it said: 

"Most of channels stay in grey color, and not showing its status."

Actually, they gray box is an indication of a status also. 

The gray box can indicate any of the following statuses:

-unknown

-not evaluated

-disabled

To see the full status, either hover with the mouse over the channel to bring up the tool-tip hint, or drag the channel to the "multimeter" measure window:

Unknown would be what you would for example see if there are different versions of the project file in IQANdesign and in the master, and the project file open in IQANdesign contain channels that aren't in the version of the project file that was sent to the master. 

Not evaluated is for channels that haven't been calculated yet. For example, incoming CAN frames that haven't yet been recieved. 

Disabled is for channels that are on a disabled expansion or in a disabled function group. 

Hi Gustav,

All channels mentioned were alive channels, and can be measured if CAN is selected as communication method. The problem only happened when using Ethernet to measure or monitor channels.

Regards,

Frank

We also get problems sometimes when viewing a function group with 677 components. We find that we get greyed box and unable to 'measure' anything on screen using a computer, could this also be similar issue?

Kevin,

For the size of function group you have with 677 components, I am suspecting that you might be hitting the limit for number of items you can stream a measurement on at the same time. Do you get the "measure terminated" dialog?

The limit is 999 items, but I just realized the component count you see in the lower right corner will only count function groups as one component. 

Hi Gustav,

We do not get the error shown (measure terminated) but instead when i use the measure button at the top of the screen all the blocks in the window that would normally turn green and show the values turn grey (status when hovering is 'unknown') and wont display anything. 

Sometimes when pressing measure the module i'm trying to communicate with (MC43FS) crashes and we get 'no contact' message appear on the MD4.

Curiously once it fails to measure (turns grey 'unknown' without the module crashing) i find that entering tools > options > measure > time depth and changing this value from the default 10 to 999, apply then OK, when clicking measure again it all appears green and i can measure again. However if i highlight one of the items that is now green and appears 'OK' the QCODE is not measure able.

After entering 999 and getting it to measure again, when i enter the same menu the value i entered (999) has now changed to an odd number, 83 seems common, sometimes 100. Its almost as if i need to 'refresh this menu to get the comms working? I tried a CAN tool (NI one that we normally use) and that refuses to get any measurements in this function group despite menu changes as i have done to get the Ethernet working. All other function groups work fuine with either CAN tool or ethernet. Whats going on?! Using IQAN 5.03, faults detailed above are using communication over Ethernet.

Is there any news on what could be causing this issue? Thanks.

Kevin,

When you change the measure options, the measurement is restarted. This should explain why it recovered as long as the MC43 was still running.

The MC43 crash that both you and Frank had sounds a lot as if there is a buffer going full in the MC43. We'll need to check if this could be the explanation and if it can be modified. 

It would be interesting to know what cycle time and cycle utilization you are running on. 

One idea to try is to reduce the maximum update rate of the measurement. This can be done in Tools > Options > Measure > Max udpate rate. For short cycle times over ethernet there will be a lot of data. Maybe the user interface does not manage to update fast enough.

by changing the update rate did not help.

However, I noticed that the grey channels were only affecting one or two groups, which has bit more And when it is grey, it was showing 'unknown'.

Frank,

Thanks. I think I understand why this happens now.  When you select Ethernet in IQANdesign/IQANrun , it is normally using the  UDP protocol, which has better performance than TCP/IP. But UDP has the drawback that packages can be lost, especially when there is lots of traffic on the network. Normally this is not an issue, it is handled by the higher-layer protocols between IQANdesign/IQANrun and the master, but I think you have come across a gap here, when starting a large measurement on many components. 

There is a workaround, by using the tab "Static modules" instead of "Discovered modules", you can force IQANdesign/IQANrun to use TCP/IP. I believe this should solve the issue you are having. 

To use this workaround, you'd need to write down the IP address of the MD4, switch it off so that it doesn't show up under discovered modules, enter the IP address under "Static modules", start the module (hoping that it gets the same IP address), and then connect. 

I am also having the 'too many channels' messages, and not showing anything in the main group, with both Ethernet and CAN communication with MC43. Is there some limit of total channels it can measure? 

The limit is 999 measure items (counting all the channels in the group and the objects on the channel you currently have selected). 

The component count you see in the lower right corner when you select all components in the function group will only count function groups as one component, therefore this number will be lower than the total number of measure items. 

Hi, I was using the TCP/IP connection with IQANDesign. 

With this application, MC43 was crashed when measuring with IQANDesign (6.00.49.5414.)

Frank,

Is this with the same application where you had the above problems with measurement in 5.04? 

Same cycle time? Where you able to measure in a smaller function group or measure group to see the cycle utilization? 

We have found purely by accident that if we connect a tablet and measure real time through IQAN connect services on an office PC through the internet, we are able to view all the functions live with no missing data or 'unknown' status. We haven't tested it to the same level but in the brief period i had it working it didn't crash out any modules. Does this help identify the fault? It seems the issues are only if your hardwired connected to a system....

Kevin, 

When you connected to the MC43 to IQANconnect, was it via the MC43 Ethernet port, or were you using the G11 with IQANsync? 

We have a G11 connected to the diagnostics bus, this is the method we used to get the measure to work with the machine.

Working on solutions for 5.05 and 6.01

It was possible to get this situations with very high amounts of traffic. The MC4x firmware has been improved to handle this much better in 5.05.  (improvement will come in 6.01 also)