A few bugs

[Bolt]

I have a few bugs I'd like to bring to your attention:

Trend View:

If you leave the "View Historical Data" enabled on a Trend View, and walk away from the PC, upon returning and un-enable it, there is not data captured in the elapsed time period.  I don't recall this ever being an issue in previous builds.  This may or may not be triggered by a red vertical dotted line occurring on the grid.  What causes this, an ERR or MSG?
Also, it does not start to capture new data again until you close the Trend View and re-open the Layout.
I also (still) find it annoying that data is not captured if you Write to PLC, and walk away from the PC, and it prompts you "Would you like to Save to Disk?"  It won't capture until you click "Yes".

Ladder View Status:
If Status is enabled in a Program/Task, and the rung contains a MEMCOPY instruction of a UDT, it makes a super wide box, as it tries to display the Source and Destination fields in "Long single-line" format.  I have View->Options->Ladder->Lengthy Instructions set to "Display Short Summary".  I would expect it to parse the data as it does say for an INIT instruction.

[franji1]

I have a few bugs I'd like to bring to your attention:

Trend View:

If you leave the "View Historical Data" enabled on a Trend View, and walk away from the PC, upon returning and un-enable it, there is not data captured in the elapsed time period.  I don't recall this ever being an issue in previous builds.  This may or may not be triggered by a red vertical dotted line occurring on the grid.  What causes this, an ERR or MSG?

I could not duplicate this.  I trended DST0 ($ScanCounter), and it continues to collect data in and out of Historical View.  However, once you run out of memory for a trend point because you stayed in Historical Mode too long (e.g. 1MB), you WILL lose data "off the end".  "Walk Away" is the key point.  There is not infinite memory - there is a limited amount of memory allocated for each trend point.  I'm guessing that's all you are seeing.

Also, it does not start to capture new data again until you close the Trend View and re-open the Layout.

Please provide the steps to duplicate this situation.  This may be related to the behavior above.  This may be the actual problem.

I also (still) find it annoying that data is not captured if you Write to PLC, and walk away from the PC, and it prompts you "Would you like to Save to Disk?"  It won't capture until you click "Yes".

Could this be the situation causing the first two?  Let me know.

Ladder View Status:
If Status is enabled in a Program/Task, and the rung contains a MEMCOPY instruction of a UDT, it makes a super wide box, as it tries to display the Source and Destination fields in "Long single-line" format.  I have View->Options->Ladder->Lengthy Instructions set to "Display Short Summary".  I would expect it to parse the data as it does say for an INIT instruction.

MEMCOPY provide status.  INIT does not.  We can definitely tweak MEMCOPY to provide "short single line" (that should be the default - will look at it).  The Option deals with display of instruction parameters, not status.  Note that if a UDT is configured to show 20 fields in the "short" form, you will definitely still get a W I D E MEMCOPY.  If this is the situation, just tweak the definition of the UDT display options to get a true "short" form (e.g. just show 5 fields in the short form, the other 15 in the long form only).

[franji1]

I duplicated the MEMCOPY issue w/UDT.  Hopefully I can get it fixed in this next release.

[franji1]

I duplicated the MEMCOPY issue w/UDT.  Hopefully I can get it fixed in this next release.

Found it.  Fixed it.

EDIT: It was taking the FULL short text width, so if you have lots of fields in the "short" form, it could be (very) long.  We put a max width limit for User Data Type status.  An alternative is to tweak the UDT to limit the "short" list of fields to contain just a few fields.  You can still put UDT fields in the long list and see them in Data View.

[Bolt]

We put a max width limit for User Data Type status.

That's what I would suggest, just limit the number of characters displayed in the MEMCOPY when the Program is in Status mode.  That way it does not mess up all the other instructions in the same rung, causing them all to run off the screen (with no scroll bar ability).

[Bolt]

I was unable to devote the effort to replicate the Trend View today, will try to get you something tomorrow.

[Bolt]

Also, it does not start to capture new data again until you close the Trend View and re-open the Layout.

Please provide the steps to duplicate this situation.  This may be related to the behavior above.  This may be the actual problem.

This happened to me 2 or 3 times in the last few weeks.  Since this post, I have tried to re-create in a "controlled" environment (recording date/time when I do certain actions, screenshots, etc) a few times, with no luck.  Either I disable History and it works as expected, or DmD locks up while doing something else and I have to kill the program and start over.

I also (still) find it annoying that data is not captured if you Write to PLC, and walk away from the PC, and it prompts you "Would you like to Save to Disk?"  It won't capture until you click "Yes".

Could this be the situation causing the first two?  Let me know.

This has been occurring for all the years that I have been using DmD.  The popup "New Edge/Instruction IDs Assigned; Save Project to Disk?" has always kept Trend View from capturing data.

...a red vertical dotted line occurring on the grid.  What causes this, an ERR or MSG?

What causes these lines, it's not ERR or MSG, transport protocol error is all I can attribute it to.  Screenshot attached.

[franji1]

You got a comm error, so those "events" are also logged in the Trend View to let you know there could be some missed data.

Not sure what your timeouts are caused by, could be the PLC scan time, or the PC doing a sync of a huge file to the cloud.  Not sure.

[franji1]

Found it.  Fixed it.

Fix for the wide MEMCOPY is in Designer 2.8.3 that came out yesterday.

[Bolt]

If you leave the "View Historical Data" enabled on a Trend View, and walk away from the PC, upon returning and un-enable it, there is not data captured in the elapsed time period.  I don't recall this ever being an issue in previous builds.  This may or may not be triggered by a red vertical dotted line occurring on the grid.  What causes this, an ERR or MSG?

I could not duplicate this.  I trended DST0 ($ScanCounter), and it continues to collect data in and out of Historical View.  However, once you run out of memory for a trend point because you stayed in Historical Mode too long (e.g. 1MB), you WILL lose data "off the end".  "Walk Away" is the key point.  There is not infinite memory - there is a limited amount of memory allocated for each trend point.  I'm guessing that's all you are seeing.

Also, it does not start to capture new data again until you close the Trend View and re-open the Layout.

Please provide the steps to duplicate this situation.  This may be related to the behavior above.  This may be the actual problem.

I think I now know how this is caused.  Scroll back in History on a Trend View.  Go to a Program Tab, and make modifications to the ladder logic.  Write to PLC (in run mode).  Return to Trend View tab.  "Close" History.  It will not be recording new Trend View Data.

[Bolt]

I also (still) find it annoying that data is not captured if you Write to PLC, and walk away from the PC, and it prompts you "Would you like to Save to Disk?"  It won't capture until you click "Yes".

Could this be the situation causing the first two?  Let me know.

If a Trend View is running, as soon as you Press Write PLC (Shift+F9), it places a yellow dashed vertical line on the Trend View, and stops trending.  It does Program Checks, etc, then opens the Download Project to PLC dialog.  If you click OK, it Writes.  Then, when Writing is complete, it prompts (if necessary) "Would you like to Save to Disk?".  It is not until you acknowledge this prompt, that it puts the dashed blue line on the Trend View, and resumes trending.  Sometimes I walk away/do something else on the PC in the mean time, and I loose a large chunk of Trend data I was hoping to use to evaluate my newly edited program.