Web enbaled control and seperate monitor for same VI

[Troy]

All,

I am a little new to this web publishing tool, so forgive if these are simple questions.

I have a monitor system for our Thermal Lab that I use the web publisher to be able to view on any PC in the company.  What I want to do now is give one or two users remote access to the monitor.  I have tried generating two web pages, one as a snapshot refreshing every 1min, the other embedded for remote access, but cannot seem to get them to operate together.  When the snapshot version is opened, then the embedded version is opened, the embedded version just appears to be stopped, but I cannot contorl anything.

Can the two different pages exist together?  If not, is there a way to accomplish remote monitoring without having to force everyone to have the RTE, and still give a limited number of users embedded access.

[Hillary_C_E]

Hi Troy,

Are you able to run the Embedded Web Panel independently of the Snapshot Web Panel? Do you see the same problem if you start the Embedded Web Panel before the Snapshot Web Panel?

Do you have the LabVIEW Run Time Engine installed on the computers that you are using with the Embedded Web Panels? You'll need the Run Time Engine that matches the version of LabVIEW that you built the VIs in. You can download the appropriate Run Time Engine here.

[Troy]

Hillary,

When I first started the application, I was able to see the embedded web panel, and I had control.  I then checked the snapshot monitor, and it too was active.  A few hours later when I went to check the embedded web panel, it showed as though the application was stopped.  The snapshot monitor showed everything as normal.  I went to the PC that runs the application and all was working normally.

As for run time engines, it is installed on all machines that need to view the embedded panel.  For that matter the development environment is also installed on those machines.  We are working in LabView 8.5.

Since this monitor is viewed by several different people and is our alert system for our thermal lab I am reluctant to restart the application too many times.  We are also seeing some conditions in the labs that are bodering on alert conditions, so I am trying to hold off on restart of the application until we have those resolved.  I may try to restart it later today.

[Hillary_C_E]

Troy,

Do you have firewalls or antivirus on your computers? This could be stopping the embedded web panel after a certain amount of time due to restricts in the firewall. Are you seeing any errors?

[Troy]

I don't see any errors on either the host macine or the remote machine.  There is virus scan software on the PC, but I have no choice there being connected to the corporate network.  There are no firewalls to deal with as both machines are on the same side of the corporate firewall. 

I can actually see the embedded panel, but it appears as though the panel is stopped.  I cannot click on any controls, but I can click on the run time menus, but all the options are greyed out.  See attached pictures of the embedded window and the snapshot window.

[Hillary_C_E]

Troy,

So, check the settings in Tools»Options for all the Webserver Tabs. I would increase the timeout and see if that makes a difference. Also, on your embedded web panel, if you right click on your front panel do you have the option to request control? Are you able to regain control?

[Troy]

I think i am beginning to see what is wrong.  I was able to restart the application this morning, and both web panels were available.  I was able to switch back and forth between them with no issues.  I have been checking the embedded application off and on throughout the day and each time I access it, it takes longer and longer to get control, or to come from the page that looks like it is stopped to actually seeing realtime data and having control. 

This brings up a question.  The graph that shows temp over time is actually a chart.  The chart history is fairly large at 86k points, as we want to see a full 24 hours or so of data.  The chart is updated once every second.  The update rate was preferred as we are in a battle with our facilities managment over the air conditioning stability and capability within the rooms.  Is it possible that the size of data stored in the chart is causing the problem?  If so, we can change the update rate.

Since the monitor has only be running for about 6 hours, I am not sure if something on the netork may be causing the problem.  I will keep an eye on it and see what we see come Tuesday. 

Thanks for your help Hillary, and have a nice holliday weekend.  I will let you know what happens next week.

[Hillary_C_E]

Troy,

The amount of data in your chart could certainly be the problem, especially if it seems load slower and slower each time you view it. The update rate could certainly make a difference. I'm curious to see how things worked out. I hope you had a nice weekend.

[johnsold]

Troy,

A chart stores data in its history array. However, it cannot DISPLAY more points than the number of pixels in the width of the plot area (for a line plot). The chart combines data points to generate a value for each pixel. Perhaps you could separate data storage from data display. If the remote monitoring places are only to look at the plot, they do not need access to all 86k points.

If your plot is sized to be 864 pixels wide, then each pixel could represent 100 seconds of data (average, minimum, maximum, median, whatever you want). Use a circular buffer of length (circumference??) 864 to store the data representing the last 24 hours for display purposes. Display it on a graph (no history) rather than a chart. The buffer could be updated every 100 seconds. The graph could be updated from the buffer whenever new data was written to the buffer or whenever the user requested and update.

Save the second by second data to a file which can be read for detailed analysis. With a little more effort an expanded view of a small segment of the data could be displayed on request. With the same 864 pixel wide graph all the data for >14 minutes can be displayed.

Lynn

[Troy]

Lynn and Hillary,

Thanks to both of you I now have this working as intended.  Lynn's suggestion was the key (that I didn't even think about before).  I reduced the graph display points and now I can fully access both the snapshot version and the embedded app with no problems.  I ended up updating the graph once per minute and displaying 36 hours worth of data.  This made for just over 2000 points, as opposed to the 80k points I was tring to display eariler. 

Now if the embedded app would just work with Firefox/Mozzilla I'd be set.  (I believe Firefox needs a plug in, but from what I can tell it depends on version, and that's another topic).

Thanks again.