Building Automation Knowledge Base

Issue Notifications (email or text file) are sent when an alarm is enabled by the shunt variable Environment Notifications Cause The Alarm object has 6 possible states that it can take   Normal - Idle state where the alarm monitors the variable. Alarm - When an alarm is triggered, the state of the alarm changes from the normal state to alarm state. Disabled - You can disable an alarm when the alarm is triggered by faulty reasons, the alarm toggles between the alarm state and reset state, or maintenance will trigger the alarm. A Disabled alarm can be hidden in the Alarms pane or Alarm Views. To reset the alarm, you have to show hidden alarms and then enable it. When you show disabled alarms, enabled alarms are hidden. Alarms are also disabled by using the Shunt Variable in the alarm configuration. Reset - The monitored variable has returned to a value that is within the normal condition of the alarm, but the alarm has to be acknowledged by a user before the alarm returns to normal state. Acknowledged - A user or user group has acknowledged the alarm. Fault - If a BACnet device reports values that it knows are not trustworthy, the monitoring alarm is put in fault state. The notification is triggered by transitioning to any of these states as selected in the "Notify on transition to" portion of the notification configuration This means that if you wish to receive a notification on transition to the Normal state, you can check the Normal box. However, this means that not only are notified when the alarm transitions from Alarm to Normal, but from Disabled to Normal or Fault to Normal.  Some of the scenarios may be undesirable. Resolution There are two ways an alarm can go to Normal: Alarm to normal Disable to normal In the Email notification main filter, you can choose to not get a notification from disarm but you might want to get a email about normal since you want to get a email when an alarm goes to normal. To accomplish this you need to add another filter called "Previous alarm state." (This filter does not work in releases prior to 1.3 SP1.) To add the filter Previous Alarm State: Click on the green + Check the boxes you want: Acknowledge Alarm Normal Reset Make sure Disable is not checked This means that when the previous state was disabled (shunted), a notification will not be sent.   Example1: This object will always trigger a notification on Alarm.  The notification will be triggered regardless of Previous State. If the Alarm is Disabled by a shunt, then enabled, but the Monitored Variable is still out of Range, a notification will be sent.   Example2: This object will only trigger a notification on the Transitions from Alarm to Reset, Alarm to Normal, Acknowledged to Reset or Acknowledged to Normal. This might be desirable for a user that wished to know when an object in Alarm returns to normal operation, but not know when an alarm goes from Disabled to normal operation.

Issue An error message is displayed when trying to save changes to a Programmable Xenta in Menta Editor. The error message is: Tam32 Save Error Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection. Parameter name: index (E) Error message trying to save changes in Menta Editor Product Line EcoStruxure Building Operation Environment Building Operation Workstation 3.0.2 or earlier Xenta 281 Xenta 301 Xenta 401 Cause A defect in Menta Editor causes this error to be displayed when a SNVT name in the Menta application is identical to the programmable Xenta device name.  An example of this is shown below: Resolution This problem has been fixed in Hotfix 3.0.2.2500 and the fix is included in version 3.1. For earlier versions there are two ways to resolve this problem; Either a) rename the Xenta device, or b) rename the SNVT. a) Renaming the Xenta device In Workstation right click the Xenta device and choose Rename Click OK Now you can edit the Xenta in Menta Editor without getting the error message b) Renaming the SNVT Right click the Xenta device and choose Edit In Menta Editor double click the block with the SNVT binding to edit the block Click the Bind... button to edit the binding Change the name, click OK to close the dialogs and Save the changes

Issue Some customers may specify that the login screen to a Xenta Server be bypassed. Environment Xenta 511, 527, 555, 701, 711, 721, 731, 913 Cause When accessing a Xenta Server using a web browser a username and password are required by default. Resolution Configure the user you want to automatically log in to the Xenta Server Generate a certificate To avoid having the certificate error pop up every time you connect to the Xenta Server, go to XBuilder, and generate a certificate that has the same name as the IP address of the Xenta Server. Edit Slogin.html and loggedout.html Connect to the Xenta Server using FTP ftp:// XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX The Slogin.html and loggedout.html are located in the folder www/index Copy the files to your local hard drive Edit the files with, for instance, notepad and change the following Slogin.html Line 54 document.AuthForm.UserID.focus();" document.AuthForm.UserID.focus(); send(AuthForm);" Line 98 input type="text" name="UserID" value="" size="20" > input type="text" name="UserID" value="user" size="20" > Line 104 input type="password" name="PassWord" value="" size="20"> input type="password" name="PassWord" value="password" size="20"> loggedout.html Line 5 (extra line, add < symbol at beginning of line) meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;url=/www/index/Slogin.html"> Carry out the changes Reconnect to the Xenta Server using FTP Change the names of the files that are already in the Xenta Server (Backup) Copy the files that from your hard drive to the Xenta Server  

Issue Alarms not showing up in the alarm list. Environment TAC Vista Workstation TAC Vista Server Cause The alarm could be disabled. The alarm might have priority 0 (info). There might be a filter in place in the alarm list. Resolution The alarm could be disabled, in workstation go to View > Disabled alarms to see the list and enable again. The alarm might have priority 0 (info). No Alarms with priority 0 is shown in the alarm list. There might be a filter in place in the alarm list, in the alarm view you are using right click and select filter to check this. A good practice is to set the "Date and Time" tab settings to reflect "Tripped " and "Last change" to show all alarms. This is done by checking the four checkboxes for "First alarm" and "Last alarm" allowing all alarms to be viewed.  

Issue Trying to install CyberStation 1.9x.  It completes but then pops up 6 errors saying "Access denied" Environment CyberStation 1.9x Cause Microsoft hotfix KB942288-V3 is installed or files are not getting registered Resolution Verify that you are installing Cyberstation with Admin rights Uninstall MS hotfix KB942288-V3 .  To do this see below. Click on Start then settings then select Control Panel from the Windows menu.  Double click Add/Remove programs. In Add/Remove programs make sure the "Show Updates" checkbox on the top of the window is selected. Scroll through the list of installed item and find the Microsoft update named "KB942288-V3" Select the update and then click the "Remove" button. Once complete shut down and restart the PC and reinstall CyberStation. Note: If KB942288-V3 was slipstreamed into the image that was used to install XP SP3 then you will not see this in Add/Remove programs Please use the link below to download a batch file to register some of the files that aren't getting registered. Copy it into c:\Program Files\Continuum, unzip the text file. Open the file and "Save As" a batch file and then run it. AccessDeniedRegisterFiles191.zip

Issue When browsing to the LNS database on the new NL220 project screen, an error message says, "Setting NeuronID of router <%s> ..._O" Product Line Other, TAC Vista Environment Lonmaker Newron NL220 Cause The name of the database folder is over 12 characters. For example, C:\LM\Db\367_Collins_St Resolution To correct this error, rename the folder containing the lonworks database to 12 characters or less. The above example folder name in the Cause heading could be renamed to  C:\LM\Db\367CollinsSt

Issue The properties of any server, Enterprise Server or Automation Server, in SmartStruxure has a Communication tab that will list the IP addresses of all associated servers on the network. Changing the IP address of an AS requires every other AS to know about the change in order to preserve any server-to-server communication. In the example below, the system has been engineered in-house on a 10.10.x.x network domain. It was then moved to site where the domain of the ES and all AS were changed to 10.159.x.x. Viewing the Communication tab on the ES shows all IP addresses have been properly updated: However, if the DNS/IP Address column is viewed from the Communications tab of one of the Automation Servers, the results vary as to which IPs have been properly updated: Automation Server A Automation Server B Automation Server C If there is any communication between two Automation Servers, and the IP addresses have not properly updated, then communication between them will break. Product Line EcoStruxure Building Operation Environment Building Operation Enterprise Server Building Operation Enterprise Central Building Operation Automation Server Building Operation Automation Server Premium Building Operation Automation Server Bundled Building Operation Edge Server - Standard Cause Any change to an Automation Server's IP address must be represented in the Enterprise Server (if there is one). It must also be updated in all associated Automation Servers. It is best practice following the change of any IP address on the system to perform a refresh of the addresses from the Enterprise Server. Note: This is also applicable in a network with Enterprise Central hosting Enterprise Servers. Resolution Right Click on the ES. Select Advanced>Repair Server Communication. Refer to: Repairing EcoStruxure BMS Server Communication

Issue Using the Pocket Terminal 32 utility to set the UNC532 default gateway via the command GW 10.130.10.253 and then set the node configuration using the SDCU.  Communications from the Sigma server to the controller failed.  On checking the default gateway it had changed to 10.130.10.240. Environment Sigma (All versions) SDCU PocketTerminal32 Cause Using SDCU to write the controller node configuration wrongly changes the previously set default gateway IP address. Resolution Configure the controller first using SDCU and then set the default gateway IP address using Pocket Terminal 32.  Similarly, if any changes are made by SDCU then the default gateway IP address must be re-entered.  The SDCU utilities is available for download.

Issue Seeing “Fail to get the next controller step 2 – 0” in the Download Server Diagnostics Window (or similar message) when attempting to download to controller. Product Line EcoStruxure Security Expert Environment Security Expert Cause There is a problem with the encryption between the client and controller. It's possible only one end of the connection is encrypted and the controller may have been defaulted. You can tell this by looking in the Event Server Diagnostic Window which will usually show entries similar to "Encrypted Packet Received". Resolution Remove encryption by selecting Disable Controller Encryption and attempt to download the controller.

Issue In Niagara G3, the SNMP driver reference manual refers to three MIB files required so that the SNMP Point Manager can "discover" and "add" SNMP points as needed.  The filenames are: TridiumR3-MIB.my RFC1155-SMI.mib RFC1213-MIB.mib Where can they be found? Environment Niagara G3 Cause The three files are not easily located. Resolution The TridiumR3-MIB.my file is installed with the version of Niagara G3 installed on the host computer. The other two files (RFC1155-SMI.mib & RFC1213-MIB.mib) can be found on the World Wide Web by searching using their specific filenames. All three files are available here:  SNMP_Files_for_G3

Issue After a new Menta application was downloaded through Vista the IO modules indicated offline with a fast flash of the green indication light. Environment Vista 5.x.x Cause The Xenta controller is using too much workspace memory. This can be seen from the memory allocation in Menta. Resolution The TAC Menta Technical Manual describes work area as the following: Work Area - Data created when executing the application program. For example, output status and time schedules.   Removing some of the time schedule holiday chart links will reduce the work area memory usage. Once this memory is in a positive free figure, the application can be downloaded and the IO will return to normal operation.

Issue Filtering Alarms in StruxureWare Building Operation to show only I/NET alarms Product Line EcoStruxure Building Operation, TAC INET Environment I/NET integrated to StruxureWare Building Operation version 1.9 and older Cause Users may wish to only view alarms from the I/NET system Resolution Filter for All I/NET Alarms: Create an alarm View Click on the Filter Object Add a condition to Filter by Type Select the Type 'INET Alarm Record' Click OK Filter for I/NET Alarms from a Specific Link Create an alarm View Click on the Filter Object Add a condition to Filter by Source Type */INET Interface/LL where LL is the link number of the desired link. Note: If the INET interface on your server is not the default name, the name must match yours exactly. Click OK

Issue Periodically a computer with Vista 4.5 will start generating the message "Failed to Read Event From Event Log Database" when opening Vista Workstation. Error: "Event Receiver Failed - Could not retrieve any events from the event log". Product Line TAC Vista Environment Vista IV Vista Workstation Windows Server 2003 Windows XP Cause Vista IV uses 2 users, TACA and TACM (appended with an underscore followed by the PC name e.g. "TACA_PCname"), to manage its SQL connection. Certain Automatic IT security procedures will either remove these users or revoke their administrator privileges. Resolution Option 1 Reinstall Vista. This will be required if the users TACA and TACM no longer exist. Option 2 Modify User rights for accounts TACA and TACM. This is only possible if the local user accounts have not been deleted. To do this you will need to follow the following steps: Log in as an Administrator Go to the control panel and look for the program User Accounts (also called User Profiles)   Find the User TACM Select Properties In the Group Membership tab, add the user TACM to the administrator group Option 3 Upgrade to Vista 5 For either Option 1 or Option 2, you will need to contact the site IT department to ensure that this issue will not come up again. Event Receiver Failed - Could not retrieve any events from the event log may also be of interest.

Issue Adding a device through the System Plug-in results in missing SNVTs, SCPTs, or Module/Functional Block Names in the Vista database. Environment Vista 5.x.x Cause The XIF file is either incorrect or parsed improperly. Resolution Right click on the device and select properties. Click on the XIF file tab. View the XIF file name (this can be found in the $thisfil directory of the Vista database) and either browse in a renamed copy of the existing file or an independent copy of the file by clicking the ... button. Click Ok Log out of Workstation Log into Workstation to see the changes. Note: For a change to be detected the filename or location of the file must be different.

Issue The address of the IAC touch screen will reset to default (65) on Sundays when time broadcast is used Product Line EcoStruxure Building Operation, Satchwell MicroNet Environment Building Operation Enterprise Server Building Operation Automation Server MicroNet transition IAC touch screen Cause When the time broadcast on an AS or ES MicroNet interface the address of the touch screen will reset Instead of broadcasting the day number as a 7, the day number is sent as a 0. The IAC touch screen does not understand day 0, resulting in the touch screen resetting to defaults. No other days are affected. When the touch screen resets, the touch screen's address is also reset and defaults to address 65. Unless the touch screen was originally configured as address 65, the controllers on the SubLAN of the touch screen will not be available, until the correct address is entered into the touch screen. Resolution A hotfix is available from Product Support for SBO version 1.7.1.12604 This correction has been included in SBO 1.8 and later releases. Earlier SBO version will need to be upgraded to SBO 1.7.1 with the hotfix applied or upgrade to version 1.8 when available

Issue How to decode the Week Chart Hexadecimal Value in Vista.   Point Name TSCHED.TS09 Channel Name DMAVISTA-LNS-DMA-Channel4-LTG_04_09 Object Name Time Chart - TAC Xenta Week Chart Value 00006270^00001C20^7F~00001D4C^00006270^7F Interpretation [7:00:00 AM - 2:00:00 AM, SMTWTFS] [2:05:00 AM - 7:00:00 AM, SMTWTFS]     Environment Time Schedules Cause  A Hexadecimal Code is generated upon creation or modification of a time schedule. Resolution The Hex code represents seconds after midnight and days of the week, and days of the week that the schedule is on.  An Excel spreadsheet to perform the conversion for you can be downloaded here. In this Example: [7:00:00 AM - 2:00:00 AM, SMTWTFS] [2:05:00 AM - 7:00:00 AM, SMTWTFS],  Is coded to be: 00006270^00001C20^7F~00001D4C^00006270^7F Break down each bracket into parts, here is the first bracketed time elapse: 00006270^00001C20^7F 00006270 =7:00:00 AM 00001C20 =2:00:00 AM 7F=SMTWTFS To decode 00006270 which represents 7:00:00AM: 00006270 (Hex seconds) =25200 (Decimal seconds) 25200/60 (seconds in a minute)= 420 minutes 420 /60 (minutes in an hour) = 7 hours 12AM midnight plus 7 hours is 7:00:00AM  To decode 00001C20 which represents 2:00:00AM: 00001C20=7200 7200seconds = 120 minutes 120 minutes = 2 hours 2:00AM To decode 7F which represents SMTWTFS 7F (Hex days of the week) =127 (decimal) =1111111 (binary)  = SMTWTFS Each bit of a 7 digit binary value is used to represent the day on in the schedule… S=1000000 M=1 T=10 W=100 T=1000 F=10000 S=100000   Here is another example: 0000003C^00000078^04 [12:01:00 AM - 12:02:00 AM, ---W---]  3Ch=60, 78h=120, 04h=0001000

Issue Running a listview is giving a mfc error Product Line Andover Continuum Environment Continuum Listview Cause mfc42.dll version conflict Resolution Turn off Anti-Virus and the Windows Firewall during Cyberstation installation Turn off Anti-Virus when using Listviews to see if it is affecting operation If that isn't helping, run a virus and a spyware scan on the hard drive and determine that the drive is clean. If the hard drive is virus and spyware free and the issue remains, search the hard drive for the file mfc42.dll. Start > Search > For Files and Folder > All Files and Folders More than likely several of the files will show up including in the Continuum folder. Check the versions of these files by right clicking on the file > select properties > version tab. If there are at least 2 different versions, rename all of the mfc42.dll files to mfc42.old, except the one in C:\Windows\System32 Retry the Continuum listview to verify this fixed the problem. There are a few programs that install mfc42.dll which may create a version conflict including Norton Utilities, 3D Mark 2001 and SE, HP printer drivers and software, Nero Easy CD Creator, Max Payne, Ulead Photo Explorer, Logitech Mousewares, Creative SBlive Playcenter, some Creative Labs drivers and others.

Issue Attempting to start I/A Series G3 Workbench generates the following error: Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/tridium/sys/Nre Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.tridium.sys.Nre         at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)         at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)         at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)         at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)         at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)         at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)         at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(Unknown Source) Environment I/A Series G3 Workbench (all versions) Cause The software is unable to locate class files provided within the baja.jar file.  The baja.jar is missing from the Niagara G3 module folder. Resolution Re-install Niagara and verify the path for installation is correct.  If this does not correct the issue, manually copy all files from the I/A Series G3 installation CD module folder into the appropriate modules folder on the target computer.

Issue Does Niagara R2, G3 (AX), and N4 support IPv6?  Product Line TAC IA Series Environment I/A Series R2 I/A Series G3 (AX) I/A Series N4 Cause Network planning questions from an end customer's IT department Resolution Niagara R2 does not support IPv6 (by design). Niagara G3 version 3.5 supports IPv6 but only on Windows-based platforms like an Enterprise Network Server or a soft Jace. Niagara G3 version 3.6 added support for IPv6 in embedded platforms like the ENC-520-2 and ENC-410-1.  Hotspot JVM required.  It is not supported by the J9 platform. Niagara N4 supports IPv6

Issue When were the different TAC Vista Server versions released? When was Vista Server version 4.X.X or 5.X.X released? Need a list of release dates for TAC Vista Server Need to know approximately how old a Vista site installation is Environment TAC Vista Server Cause It would be interesting to know the release date of the different Vista Server versions Resolution All the Vista release note documents are available on the The Exchange Download Center. TAC Vista 3.11 - 1998-10-21 TAC Vista 3.21 Service Pack 1 - 2000-02-04 TAC Vista 2000 Server and Workstation 3.31 Service Pack 1 - 2001-07-04 TAC Vista 2000 Server and Workstation 3.32 - 2001-09-10 TAC Vista 2000 Server and Workstation 3.33 - 2001-12-20 TAC Vista 2000 Server and Workstation 3.33 SP2 - 2002-11-15 TAC Vista IV Server/Workstation/Menta 4.01 - 2003-02-21 TAC Vista IV Server/Workstation/Menta 4.10 - 2003-10-24 TAC Vista IV Server/Workstation/Menta 4.2 - 2004-03-10 TAC Vista IV Server/Workstation/Menta 4.2.1 - 2004-04-19 TAC Vista IV Server/Workstation/Menta 4.2.2 - 2004-06-24 TAC Vista IV Server/Workstation/Menta 4.2.3 - 2004-11-30 TAC Vista IV Server/Workstation/Menta 4.2.5 - 2005-03-21 TAC Vista Server and Workstation 4.3.0 - 2005-04-29 TAC Vista Server and Workstation 4.3.0 SP1 - 2005-05-25 TAC Vista Server and Workstation 4.3.1 - 2005-07-15 TAC Vista Server and Workstation 4.3.1 SP1 - 2005-10-31 TAC Vista Server and Workstation 4.4.0 - 2005-12-16 TAC Vista Server and Workstation 4.4.1 - 2006-03-13 TAC Vista Server and Workstation 4.4.2 - 2006-05-29 TAC Vista 4.5.0 - 2006-07-05 TAC Vista 5.0.0 - 2006-11-15 TAC Vista 5.0.1 - 2007-04-26 TAC Vista 5.0.2 - 2007-09-28 (first version to support Xenta 700) TAC Vista 5.0.3 - 2008-01-21 TAC Vista 5.1.0 - 2008-06-03 TAC Vista 5.1.1 - 2008-10-27 TAC Vista 5.1.2 - 2009-04-15 TAC Vista 5.1.3 - 2009-09-24 TAC Vista 5.1.4 - 2010-03-31 TAC Vista 5.1.5 - 2011-01-25 TAC Vista 5.1.6 - 2011-07-04 TAC Vista 5.1.7 - 2012-01-03 Note: All dates are in the form [year]-[month]-[date]