Troubleshooting

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Managing Historian Log Files

Use the Historian LogTool to view, generate, or compress log files to use for troubleshooting. Logtool.exe is located in the historian installation directory, for example: C:\Program Files\Proficy\Proficy Historian\X64.

  1. Go to your installation directory and execute the Logtool.exe file.
    The LogTool opens, displaying the View Log tab.

  2. Select a component from the left panel to see the available log files, and click View Log.
  3. Click Generate Logs to enable or disable the debug logging mode for Historian components:

    This tool will enable/Disable the debug mode for Historian components. However, leaving the debug mode enabled for longer time consume the disk space

    1.Select the component

    2.Choose enable/disable option

    3.Click apply



    1. Select a Historian Component and click Enable or Disable.
      Note: Leaving debug mode enabled for a component consumes disk space.
    2. Click Apply.
  4. Click Gather Logs and click Zip the log files to compress the log files and click Open zip file location to view the zip files.


Troubleshooting Historian

Before troubleshooting any performance-related issue, make sure the computer meets the recommended hardware requirements.

Troubleshooting Strict Authentication Issues

If the Historian Server rejects valid collector or client user credentials while connecting, consider the following condition:

Time Sync between the Server Time and Domain Controller Time

If a client or collector is attempting to connect to the Historian server with Strict Authentication enabled on a Kerberos configuration, ensure that the Server time and Domain Controller time match with each other. Otherwise, the server rejects valid credentials and does not allow the connection.

Troubleshooting Historian Server Components

Changing Service Port Numbers

To change the port number of any of the Configuration Manager, Data Archiver or Diagnostics Manager:
  1. From Historian Admin Console, change the Port Number from the Services page.
    Note: You cannot update the port number of a service which is already in use in the same machine.
  2. Ensure that the changed port numbers are updated in the registry which is located at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Intellution, Inc.\iHistorian\Services.
    If the port number is not updated, you must update it manually.
  3. Restart the corresponding service.
    For example, if you change the port number of the Data Archiver, then you must restart the Data Archiver service.

Connecting a Historian Server to a Historian Client through a Firewall

To connect a Historian server to a Historian Client through a firewall from a remote machine, you must enable port number 443.

Receiving a Collector Configuration Error

If you receive a single ihConfigurationGetProperties[-2] error in the collector.LOG file, the error most likely occurred as a result of the collector connecting and querying for changes in the tag database immediately, getting a timeout, and then immediately querying again and succeeding.

User API Programs Not Freeing Up Memory

User API Programs built with anything other than Visual Studio .NET should be modified to call ihuFreePtr() to free any memory pointers returned by the User API. Do not free these pointers using free() in your application or you can risk memory corruption. User API does not support Unicode programming.

Maximum Buffer Memory Size

You can specify the maximum memory buffer size that an archiver queue can take. By default, memory buffer size is 100MB.

Troubleshooting a Historian Cluster

You may find these issues with clusters:
  • If a Historian resource does not go online initially, make sure you have cluster feature included in your license.
  • If a Historian resource runs for a long period of time and then has an unexpected failover, debug the log messages of the Data Archiver and the Clusters before taking appropriate actions.

Troubleshooting iFIX and Historian

Running iFIX as a Service with iFIX Workspace Listed in the SCU Task List

Prior to iFIX 5.1, if you have configured iFIX to run as a service, you should not have WORKSPACE.EXE listed as a configured task in the Task Configuration dialog box of the SCU. If WORKSPACE.EXE is listed as a configured task, it may lead to unpredictable results. For example, if you are also running Historian, no servers will appear in the Server Name field of the Configure the Historian Server dialog box and you will not be able to browse Historian tags in the iFIX Expression Editor.

To rectify this, remove WORKSPACE.EXE from the list of configured tasks in the SCU.

iFIX WorkSpace delay when remote session is lost

If the connection between iFIX and a remote Historian session is lost, you may experience a 90 second delay in the iFIX Workspace Configuration environment, chart, or Expression Builder when accessing a pen associated with that Historian session.

In the Run Time Environment, all pens in a chart disappear for 90 seconds when the session to a remote Historian session is lost, even if they are associated with a local Historian server.

Starting iFIX when a remote Historian session is unavailable

If you are using Historian with iFIX, the iFIX Workspace attempts to connect to the Historian Server when it starts up. If a remote Historian server is unavailable, it may take one minute or longer for iFIX Workspace to display for each unavailable server.

Accessing Mission Control when a remote Historian session is lost

If a remote Historian session is lost while you are accessing `the HTC tab of Mission Control in the iFIX Workspace, the H tab may blank out for a minute or longer.

Accessing tags in the iFIX chart after setting OPC "Collector to Made After Restart"

If you add tags in the Historian Administrator to a Server from an OPC Collector that has Configuration Changes set to Made After Collector Restart, you will be able to see those tags in the iFIX Expression Builder. You can add them to a chart, for example, but they have no collected data until you manually stop and restart the OPC Collector.

Collecting data in an iFIX chart with Time Assigned By Source

If you are retrieving data in an iFIX Chart from a Historian Server, have set the Time Assigned by field to Source, and have collectors running behind the Server time, the chart will display a flatline up to the current time of the local machine.
Note: You must set Time Assigned by field to Source if you have unsolicited tags getting data from an OPC Collector.

Synchronizing the time on iFIX SCADA Servers and View Clients

To ensure that acknowledgements are not lost or attributed to the wrong alarm, synchronize the clocks on SCADA servers and iFIX View Client machines. If the clocks are not synchronized, alarms generated on the SCADA nodes and acknowledged on the iFIX View Client nodes could have significantly different timestamps. You can synchronize the clocks using the NET TIME command. Refer to the Windows Help system for more information.

The REST API Reference Manual e-book uses port 8443 in examples and sample code throughout the e-book. If you copy and paste the sample code from this document, you must change this port number to your installed port.

If you have a previous install of Historian, and you have installed PHA/PKC 6.0/6.1, you will need to uninstall and then reinstall Historian.

Troubleshooting OPC Data Collectors

Troubleshooting the OPC UA Data Access (DA) Collector

The OPC UA Data Access (DA) Collector gathers and collects data from any OPC UA 1.0-compliant OPC UA Server. The OPC UA DA Collector automatically determines the capability of the OPC UA Server to which it is connected, and supports the appropriate features based on this information.
Note: The OPC UA DA Collector does not connect to a UA server that requires the Username/Password authentication. This includes the CIMPLICITY UA Server.

Troubleshooting the OPC HDA Collector

The OPC HDA Data Collector collects data from any OPC HDA 1.2 -compliant OPC HDA Server. The OPC HDA Collector automatically determines the capability of the OPC HDA Server to which it is connected, and supports the appropriate features based on this information.
Note: GE assumes no responsibility for the ability for the OPC HDA Data Collector to connect to specific HDA servers.

Troubleshooting Historian 7.0 with PHA/PKC 6.0

Installing PHA/PKC on a machine that has Historian 7.0 or greater will fail due to a port conflict issue. Both applications use the same default port 8443. You must follow the recommended order of install below to avoid this error. Installing Historian after PHA/PKC on the same machine will not fail as Historian has the ability to detect used port and will configure an unused port.

The recommended order of install is:
  1. Install PHA/PKC 6.0/6.1.
  2. Install Historian 7.0.
Note: If you are performing an install on a system with no prior install of PHA/PKC or Historian, you must first install the Historian Alarm and Events Archiver and the Historian Client Tools from the Historian install media, and then you can install PHA or PKC, and then finally the rest of Historian.