Morning all,
SE isn't really where I live, so bear with me. FactoryTalk View SE V13, network distributed, one HMI server and a Tag Alarm and Event server on the same Windows Server box, four clients. Every time IT patches that box and it reboots, the HMI server comes back and the clients reconnect, but the alarm summary stays empty. No banner, no error, nothing. Someone opens the Administration Console, right clicks the alarm server, Start, and it's all back inside a minute.
Diagnostics shows the alarm server not loaded after the reboot and nothing before that, and I checked the licence, that's fine. The alarm database on SQL Express is happy enough once the server is running.
Three reboots, three for three. So what is supposed to tell that alarm server to start? Is that a service on the box or something set in the application, because three for three after a reboot can't be chance?
The exact Diagnostics line, please, not the summary. And what's the startup type of the FactoryTalk Directory service and the FactoryTalk Alarms and Events services in services.msc after the patch, automatic or delayed?
> the exact Diagnostics line
"Tag Alarm and Event Server 'AE_Line1' is not loaded" with the client reconnect lines31 after it. Nothing about a failed start, it just never tries. Everything on the box is V13, services all Automatic, not delayed, and IT confirmed nothing there changed with the patch.
Never tries is the clue. Does the HMI server say loaded in the same log? If the HMI server loads on boot and the alarm server doesn't, they're set differently, not failing differently.
We had exactly that on a line rebuild last year. It's a property on the server itself, not a Windows service. In the Administration Console, right click the alarm server, Properties, and the startup setting is on the first tab. I think ours was on the option that only loads it when a client asks for it. The HMI server beside it was set to load when the operating system initializes. Set the alarm server the same way and it comes up on its own. Wording moves about between versions, so go by what the second option says rather than by my memory of it.
And the integrator's drawings said the alarm server came up on boot. They usually do.
Found it where you said, first tab on V13. The alarm server was set to load only on demand while the HMI server next to it was set to load at OS start, which is why one came back after a reboot and the other never even tried. Changed it in the Administration Console, rebooted the box on purpose at lunch, and the alarm summary came up on its own about 90 seconds behind the HMI server.
Three clients fine, the fourth needed a restart, it had cached the empty summary. Still don't know why that one didn't recover with the others. If I remember right there's a client reconnect setting somewhere, haven't found it.
Thanks pat_k, suel, jcasey.
Nobody reads that second radio button. Good one to have written down.