OPC server items not found with NI DSC nor datasocket

[Stijn_Schacht]

Hi,

I am using LabVIEW 2009 SP1 and an OPC server from ifak (isPro Multiserver v 2.5.1) on a windows XP professional SP3 platform.

If i use the datasocket vi "browse for URL" then I can navigate to the server, it starts the server (I can see the hardware "coming to live" and logging on to the UUT -the network is a profibus network with 1 USB/profibus gateway as master and 1 UUT profibus slave. However, when navigating through the branches of the server I can not navigate to the OPC items. I can navigate to the point where they should be, but then the browser waits a few seconds and then displays "no items" and places a red cross through the icon.

When using the manufacturer OPC client, I can navigate to the items and I can see them, read them or write them. The funny thing is that I can also browse to these items using the NI Quick OPC client(!) When using datasocket VIs, or when configuring a project using the DSC module --> new I/O server --> OPC client --> browse to OPC server and then trying to configure the labview library to hold the OPC items, I never get to see the actual items.

This seems to be a DCOM problem but I can not believe that, since

1) the manufacturer OPC client sees the items

2) the NI Quick OPC client sees the items

3) I followed all guidelines from

http://www.automation.com/pdf_articles/OPC_and_DCOM_5_things_you_need_to_know.pdf

and

http://www.automation.com/pdf_articles/Troubleshooting_OPC_and_DCOM.pdf

and I also set the OPC server access to "the interactive user", as recommended by NI.

The OPC server and OPC client reside on the same computer, but in any case I also disabled the windows firewall. There are no other firewalls running.

I am completely stuck in this application, since I can access the OPC items using any client, but I can not access them via LabVIEW 😞

If anybody has a suggestion, please help me.

best regards,

Stijn

[Vijay Jayabalan]

Hi Stijn Schacht

These seems to be some bugs with OPC Client instances created using LabVIEW 2009 SP1,  when we tried to communicate to Siemens S7 PLC. 

Basically when deploying the shared variable library configured with OPC Client instance, it crashes the SVE.

From all your observations, what i can suggest is, try with LabVIEW 2009 along with DSC 2009.

Thanks,

Vijay Jayabalan.

[Stijn_Schacht]

Hi,

it is indeed some kind of bug, because 2 weeks ago, I needed to deinstall the DSC module since this led to a premature crash of the tagserver every time I booted windows.

I will try this week with LV2010 and report back if I have results.