Diagnostics Guide - Siemens SIMATIC PCS 7 System Manual

Diagnostics guide

10.1 Troubleshooting procedure
Ini file
One of the greatest sources of errors in the configuration phase is the inconsistent use of the
ini file (FB_Configuration.ini). This file must be identical on each OS computer in the project.
Problems can arise if some of the OS project computers are operating with a modified ini file,
while others are still using an old ini file which has not been adapted to the project. In order to
prevent this, the engineering tool automatically copies the ini file to the project directory.
One frequent cause of errors is the ServerPrefix entry in the ini file. It can be adapted using
the engineering tool. The symbolic computer name of the OS server project must end in "::".
If you can access the APF user archive in runtime using an APF faceplate on an operable OS
server, but not on an OS client, the most likely reason is the wrong ServerPrefix entry in the
ini file (or the wrong ini file on the OS client, in which the ServerPrefix entry is also wrong).
Text library
APF uses the text library of the OS server for multilingual management of configuration data,
for example, the name of material classes. If the text library is exported during the engineering
phase to simplify processing (for example, in MS Excel), you must be careful not to trigger OS
compilation or open any OS project editors between exporting and importing the text library.
If you do, this can cause problems because the text library might then contain entries in the
wrong places.
Messages
Runtime errors are output as messages. If messages are not output or the message row is
empty, check alarm logging to see whether the messages have been imported and are also
available in the relevant runtime language.
User archive data
You need to distinguish between runtime data and configuration data in the user archive. In
the engineering phase, a number of different archives are created and content generated using
the engineering tool. This content and the archive structure are referred to as "configuration
data" as they are generated on the ES during the engineering phase. If a data record (material,
parameter set, etc.) is then created on an OS client or OS server during project runtime, this
data record will only be available on the OS server (pair). This content can be referred to as
"runtime data" because it is created in OS runtime.
Advanced Process Functions Engineering Manual
System Manual, 07/2016, A5E38719921-AA
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