Factory talk 6.10 crashing Whole PC

[Patrickc 1]

I am building a client software on factory talk and i have a display which contains a panel with a lot of images (buttons and lights) with their respective tags. When a section of the panel is pressed, a popup is opened showing a more detailed version of the panel. First of all, the panel takes a while to load, secondly, if more than two popups are opened the computer goes into a frenzy. The screens start flickering and changing what is displayed, the start bar shoots to the top of the screen, resolution is lost etc etc...The only solution is to hard-restart. I have noticed an error message in the flickering: "Insufficient memory" or something of the sort. The computer I am working and running the software on is: Intel Core i5 760 2.8 Ghz 8GB ram DDR3 Nvidia GeForce GT 430 with 1024Mb Memory With Windows 7 professional x64 freshly installed Could it be the Graphics card memory? Any ideas would be highly appreciated! Thank you

[Ken Roach 194]

I think you have a defective video card. I've run multiple popup screens on computers far less powerful than yours without causing video problems. FactoryTalk View might have its shortcomings, but it's a far less graphics-intensive program than any game or video application.

[Patrickc 1]

The problem is that only this specific display has caused the computer to crash...I also think its weird that the graphics card can't cope with the software =/ Thank you

[Digita7Voic3 0]

Patrickc, I have very strong reasons to believe it is related to Windows 7 64 bit OS. Because I was having the same problems. I called rockwelll tech support and they told me that it was not officially supported on Win 7. Try this.. Install VMWare Player (free) and run an Image of windows xp with factory talk view installed. That is the only way I have gotten it to work in my end. My computer has very similar specs (Dell Latitude E5520): Intel Core i5 760 2.8 Ghz 8GB ram DDR3 Intel HD Graphics Windows 7 professional x64 Let me know if this helps! -Julio Velasco

[Patrickc 1]

Hi Julio, Thank you for your reply. The software I am currently running, the 6.10 is stated to be compatible with windows 7 professional x64 in the description, so I wonder howcome they told you it was not officially compatible. Also, thing is I used to run this software on Windows 7 Professional x86 (32 bit) and I had the same problems with it. I am going to try the new graphics card since if I just end up downgrading the OS, I will essentially lose half the RAM. I will try to remember to post what happens here :) Thank you Patrick

[Patrickc 1]

I upgraded the Graphics card to a more decent ATI radeon 6950 club edition, but the problem still persists. I consulted my IT technician and he had no idea what could be happening. Sometimes an error pops up saying: "Insufficient memory to complete operation" (or something similar). The technician suggested against downgrading to XP since I would lose the capability to get 8GB RAM and even the i5 processor. Thank you Patrick

[OkiePC 14]

Five years ago I installed RSView 4.0 ME and it went okay, only taking a couple of days to get all the right patches in place, and then it ran decent (as a development package). Our SCADA systems were on RSView 4.0 SE systems (server/clients). They frequently failed, redundancy never did work correctly, and when this happened we usually lost several hours of production throughout the whole plant since all three main systems were running on those redundant server systems. So, we battled with patches and support for a year and it never got any better. We had raised a big stink with Rockwell and they did send us some help. The two experts who came in, found many things that could stand improvement in our systems. I think the bullet list was about 12 items and we knocked them out within a couple of weeks. Their major piece of advice was to upgrade to 5.0 because it was "a major rewrite" intended to "solve all the 4.0 problems". So, I was the guinea pig and upgraded my development machine first. I found the lengthy instructions for how to upgrade from 4.0 to 5.0. I found the "lie to the registry" tools to fake out the installer program. I did everything by the book and completely fouled up my computer. For a week, I could not get anything to run right. Finally I had to get IT involved to repair the registry, then I was able to get FTView 5.10 to install. It runs worse than 4.0 by a large margin. It crashes for no reason, requires me to reboot at least once an hour to prevent crashing. It is just junk software. It has been junk since the first release, and it is probably still junk in version 6.10. My machine was so fubar (and I followed the instructions to the letter) that my Autocad software got corrupted to, and the license server was all jacked (apparently Autodesk and Rockwell use the same company for their license scheme). So, that little move forced me to accept an upgrade to Autocad that simply turned my drafting workstation into a dogturd. It runs extremely slow with only 4g of RAM running ACAD Mechanical and Electrical (before, I had ACAD 2004 LT and was happy to have it). So, before you blame your hardware, blame FTView. You will be hard pressed to find more bugs per dollar spent in any other software in existence. I wish I had some quick fix for you, I don't. I can only give you consolation that you are not alone, and maybe this link can provide some relief: http://www.wakeupord...l/compfrus.html Edited 7 Oct 2011 by OkiePC

[Patrickc 1]

Wow ok, thanks lol, Lots of hatred for FT view I see! Thank you, at least i know im not alone!

[Joe E. 259]

I'm also not a fan at all. I just need to program touch screens, no fancy SCADA. I don't need to run Windows on my operator interfaces. I just need a touch-screen HMI. The RSView/FTView software (along with price, of course) is a large part of why I won't buy any more PV+ HMIs. The only time I will remotely consider the possibility is if I can't find a way around connecting a screen via DH+. And even then, we're looking at other alternatives.

[mhowasso 5]

The best thing I did was switch from AB to Eaton PanelMate XP using Visual Designer. All my problems went away, and the graphics are 10 times better.

[Tim Williams 1]

It sounds to me that something in those two pop-ups are trying to either open more pop-ups or change each others displays. You run out of memory because it may be trying to open to many displays simultaneously. A flickering display sounds like one pop-up is doing the something and the other is un-doing it. I would double even-triple check what those pop-ups are doing. I would delete like half the things on the panel and give it a try. Then restore, delete the other half, and see if the problem goes away. I really don't know what is going on but it sounds like you have to resort to the basic shotgun troubleshooting approach.

[Patrickc 1]

I think i figured out what the problem was - I think i reached the limit of the amount of tags that could be visible at one time. Thing is that on the main panel i had a lot of lights, all with their respective tags. I took a chance and started deleting some of the less useful ones, after reducing the number by half or more i tried loading up popups again. This time it went up to 7 popups! I am glad with that, and so is the User, so it will have to stay that way :) Do you think it really is because i reached the tag limit? Thank you