Program closes DS5.3

[jwbaker3]

I have a problem with some of the programs(PLC) on my laptop causing directsoft to stop working and windows 7 to close the program. These are programs I made and used with DS5 for a couple of years. I ran a hard drive scan and it found some bad sectors and moved some files, this may have been some of them. I think this may be the problem, I don't think it is anything to do with DS5. Is there any way to repair the programs so they are usable? It will happen at different times, some time when I open the program in DS5 it will shutdown as soon as it opens, but I had one yesterday that opened everything looked ok I hooked up with the vpn OK but when I turned on the status so I could look at the program and troubleshoot the issue with the machine windows displayed a message that DS5 stop working and had to close. If I could get the documentation I can get the current program out of the PLC and import the doc's. So far I have 12 programs that this has happened, I also have used many of the other programs with no problems. I have online back of the programs the problem is the system backed up the bad programs before I knew there was a problem. I have made a copy of all of the files on the harddrive and replacing the drive in the computer with a solid state drive.

Thanks,
JW

[rlp122]

If you had bad sectors on your hard drive, everything that was stored on the drive is suspect.  I wouldn't bet on any program or file not having errors.  Best thing to do is open each of the Directsoft programs, export to mnemonic and then reimport once you get the new hard drive installed with a fresh install of Directsoft.

[franji1]

There is an auto-save feature in DirectSOFT (in case you do not have any backups) that saves the most recent 4 copies of your project.  If your "current" project is corrupt, you can get SOME of your work back by restoring those "auto saved" projects.  Remember, though, these backups may also be corrupt.

Using Windows Explorer, browse to your c:\DirectSOFT5\Projects folder.  There's a sub-folder named Backup, then below that AutoSave.  The next level is the "root" folder for each project name (e.g. if you have a project called "Machine1", the folder containing all the auto-saved backups will be below a folder named "Machine1").

Click on the project folder name and that takes you to another folder with folder names that are the date-time stamp of a SPECIFIC backup of THAT project.  These folder names are in the format of $YY-MM-DD$HH-MM-SS, e.g. $13-09-06$11-29-59.

Click on the most recent date/time stamp folder.  Below there are all the various DirectSOFT project files.  Try copying those to a "safe place" and then try opening it.  If that is corrupt, try the 2nd newest project, etc. until you (hopefully) find a pristine project.

The more frequently you save your project, the closer the auto-saved backup will be to your current one.

If DirectSOFT project file is corrupt, there's not much that can be done other than look at the backups.

Good luck.

[franji1]

If you had bad sectors on your hard drive, everything that was stored on the drive is suspect.  I wouldn't bet on any program or file not having errors.  Best thing to do is open each of the Directsoft programs, export to mnemonic and then reimport once you get the new hard drive installed with a fresh install of Directsoft.

Agreed.  A project may just be "slightly" corrupt that may appear to open correctly, but will get worse over time.  This procedure recommended by rlp122 is the best way to get your logic and documentation back (although not any other parts of your project like V memory content).

[LWgreys]

It's not the programs, its the compatibility with Windows 7.
Right click your DS5 icon, select Compatibility and set it to Windows XP (Service Pack3) like in the image below.
Do this for any program that ran in XP before but not in 7.
MS Window also has an XP mode download for those XP programs that want run all.
I haven't had to install that yet.