Intermittent PC<-->Kflop problems

[billmotion]

Not sure I'm posting this to the right forum but it seems to fit better here than other places.

Two of our geographically remote machines with Windows 7 Professional 32-bit and KFLOP version 4.32 controllers started to have failures up to several times a day beginning near the end of May. These are not G-code machines. The computer screens report KFLOP compile errors saying that the PC and KFLOP version numbers do not match and the process stops running. There have been no program updates and the machines have been running problem free for 3 years in one case and 4 years in the other case. The errors occur both during the day while running production and overnight when the machines are idle and not sending newly compiled C programs to the KFLOP. Sometimes the errors on only one the machines are accompanied by "invalid memory reference.." messages. Unfortunately the "invalid memory reference.." only says that "Your application experienced ..." without saying what application it was so we don't know where it is coming from.

The machines also have or had RemotePC installed for software maintenance and troubleshooting. Neither machine could be reached via RemotePC. We discovered that the clocks on both machines were set to a date in 2010. We have no explanation for how that happened and have never seen that on any other machines. After forcing windows to sync its clock to one of the standard Windows time sources there were some Windows Security Essentials updates on both machines and then we could reach the machines via RemotePC again. One of the machines then no longer displayed errors.

We uninstalled RemotePC on the machine that still was having errors but the "invalid memory reference ..." errors continue.

Because there are Windows Security updates occurring every day we tried disconnecting the machine from the Ethernet overnight. Somewhat surprisingly the overnight errors stopped occurring. Unproven is whether the errors would stop if the Ethernet were disconnected during the day. That is impractical because the machine gets its job parameters over the Ethernet.

Its looking to me like maybe something is being triggered over the Ethernet that interferes with PC-KFLOP communcation. What would cause the PC message about a bad compile and mismatched KFLOP versions? If we knew that perhaps a triggering cause or workaround could be discovered. There is a compile and download of an axis initialize C program when the PC program begins.

We are contacting the RemotePC folks to see if any of their updates near the end of May caused or resolved any similar issues at other locations.

I'm hoping that someone else has encountered similar behavior and found a solution or can propose a solution.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Bill

[TomKerekes]

Hi Bill,

Sorry you are having problems. Very Strange.

I can't imagine why there would be a Version miss match error when not compiling a program. Incidentally the Version compare has nothing to do with any Time Stamps. KMotion reads the firmware file (DSPKFLOP.out) and extracts a Version String then requests this same string from KFLOP. Both strings are printed in the error message so you might look at the error message to see which is wrong or corrupted.

Could Windows Updates be restarting your App? You said your App compile/downloads the Init C programs on startup. Maybe you could add a Startup Log to your App?

I think there are ways to inhibit Windows Updates in W7.

You might try our latest USB Driver for Version 4.35b.

[billmotion]

Is the USB driver in question on the KFLOP side or on the PC side?

Would you recommend updating the driver only or should the entire KFLOP go to 4.35b?

Are PC side updates needed when up-versioning the KFLOP?

Thanks,
Bill

[TomKerekes]

Hi Bill,

Is the USB driver in question on the KFLOP side or on the PC side?

The USB driver is a PC side Windows driver that is installed using Window's Device Manager.

Would you recommend updating the driver only or should the entire KFLOP go to 4.35b?

You might try updating the driver only first. Then later try updating to KMotion 4.35b. All versions of Drivers should basically be compatible and functionally equivalent. With newer versions having bug fixes and improvements.

Are PC side updates needed when up-versioning the KFLOP?

Yes. The KMotion Version used on the PC must match the Firmware Version Flashed in KFLOP.