ClearSCADA 2007 R1.2 Release Notes

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New Features

• Support for Windows 2008 Server.

• Security changes that were made to support Vista also apply to Windows Server 2008. Hence, the names and locations of files within the system have been changed.

• A new Registry setting called 'FlashInterval' to control the flash rate of flashing colours. On systems that experience low ViewX performance due to complex mimics, increasing the flash interval will proportionally reduce the CPU load for mimic rendering.  This setting can be found per user in the registry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Serck Controls\SCX6\ViewX.

Resolved Issues

Performance Improvements

• Added exception handling to the interest update thread to capture which client was being updated in the event of a crash.

• Prevented server advise links from eventually using up all memory in the server when a client enters sleep mode.

• In a main-standby system, prevent the main server from running out of virtual memory when cold synchronising historic data.

• Speed up driver startup by only retrieving information required by drivers when listing objects, instead of all the information used by ViewX.

• Modified exception zip file generation to only include the 10 most recent DB log files (plus all DB_Startup log files).

• Modified server links to reclaim memory after a large request has been processed.

Advanced Drivers

• Advanced drivers have been modified to correctly handle the problem of the socket failing due to a purge if a request to a network connected outstation timed out.

• Changed the advanced driver I/O layer (serial, network and TCP/IP) to handle the scenario where a reply is received from an outstation before the driver has completed transmitting the message. In some drivers this can lead to the driver mistaking the reply as an unsolicited message, as it isn't yet expecting the reply. This scenario occasionally occurs with network attached serial ports (observed with both Comtrol DeviceMaster and Digi PortServer). It can also occur if messages have a very long post-amble, particularly if baud rate is low and serial port UART has small FIFO buffer.

• Fixed issue on advanced driver network channels which meant that if a socket failed it would complete any outstanding replies for the channel as a whole, instead of just the socket that failed. If the reply was not associated with the socket this could cause some unexpected behaviour including valid responses being rejected.

• Fixed driver crash which can occur if the configuration of a PSTN outstation is modified just as a PSTN call is ending.

• Fixed crash which could occur in advanced drivers if a request to a network connected outstation timed out and the subsequent purge resulted in the socket failing.

SCADAPack Modbus

• Fixed the SCADAPack Modbus driver to prevent it from incorrectly requesting 126 registers if the number of consecutive points exceeds the 125 register limit. This could occur if there was a gap in the addresses between the last valid point to request and the one that caused the limit to be exceeded.

• The SCADAPack Modbus driver has been modified so that it does not get caught in a loop if an exception response is received.

• Error handling in SCADAPack Modbus driver has been improved to ensure:

• If all retries are exhausted for a request on a Modbus TCP connection the transaction ID is now correctly incremented so the next new message has a different ID. This could have previously led to miss-processing of data for a new request and in some circumstances (for RealFLO) lead to a server exception.

• Improved packet parsing to ensure that if a bad packet is received that it will not cause any problems within the driver. This typically could only have occurred if the remote device generated a bad packet.

• The SCADAPack Modbus translator has been improved to ensure it does not get caught in a loop if a bad packet is processed. This could occur if the user selected the wrong framing type which would lead to miss-parsing of the packets.

• Corrected internal SCADAPack Modbus point address map manipulation so that it now correctly removes any entries already added to the map when a subsequent part fails to be added due to it overlapping with another item.

• RealFLO Daily Poll operation has been corrected so that it correctly copes with gaps in the data at the controller. The SCADAPack Modus Translator has been enhanced so that it will attempt to work out the Modbus framing type if it was not specified on the command line. If it can't work it out it defaults to RTU framing as it did before.

• Fixed bug in SCADAPack Modbus driver which could lead to the miss-processing of 3 bit digital inputs. This could occur when processing coil or discrete input read responses where the first bit is the last bit in one data byte and the final two bits were first two bits in the next data byte. The fault manifested itself with the second bit of the point always being set to zero. The SCADAPack Modbus translator has been corrected to show the plant address when translating Force Coil and Force Multiple Coil messages. The address was being shown in protocol format rather than plant format (i.e. out by 1).

DNP3

• Prevented DNP3 driver sending the initial message twice if outstation reported 'device restart' (IIN 1.7) during outgoing PSTN call.

• Fixed DNP3 driver's unsolicited message state machine.Fixed DNP3 driver to handle asynchronous close file requests (i.e. NULL response, followed by event), previously it tried to continue the file transfer even though it had completed.

• Extended DNP3 comms log translator to include object status flags and to show contents of data sets (hex dump only).

• Fixed E-Series configuration upload when using revised file transfer.

• Fixed crash in DNP3 driver which could occur when attempting to dial an outstation which requires data link confirms but the outstation replied with an invalid application layer response.

• The DNP3 driver has been fixed so that it now always correctly handles a start-up unsolicited message.

• Corrected "Perform Level 3 Scan" request in the DNP3 driver to ensure the line is hung up correctly for PSTN outstations that do not have the "Poll When Online" property enabled.

• Fixed eNET outstation's DNP3 and eNET point indices so that changing the number of bits on an eNET binary point and also changing either the point type or DNP object type (but not both) at the same type doesn't corrupt one of the indices. Fixed 'foreign keys' integrity check which was reporting false errors for DNP3 outstation's point index, for all 2-bit and 3-bit binary points.

• Corrected scheduled string point polling in DNP3 driver to ensure that the scheduled polls occur at the rate configured.

• The DNP3 driver has been improved to correctly handle comms being present on a dormant channel. The driver will no longer get stuck should this happen.

Query Processor

• Ensured that SQL UPDATE, INSERT or DELETE operations executed on standby server are proxied to the main server, and not executed locally on the standby server.

• Fixed server crashes when executing SQL DML statements via a standby database.

• Fixed SQL DML statements executed via a standby web server (typically from client side scripts) to use the correct client credentials when checking access permissions.

• Fixed server crash that occurred when an SQL UPDATE statement set the Name or FullName fields using an expression.

• Fixed a potential server crash when a user executed an SQL query containing summary functions embedded within a scalar function.

• Fixed SQL UPDATE commands to correctly propagate changes to aggregate fields to instances.

• Fixed the SQL query processor to ensure column aliases are assigned to the correct column.

Templates and Instances

• Fixed case where an invalid instance (i.e. TemplateId is null but instance has children) could be created.

• Fixed integrity error when converting an instance to a different template. The error occurred when a group was deleted during the conversion but references to the objects within it were due to references to objects in a group that is deleted by the conversion not being removed from objects outside the instance.

• Fixed crash when importing an invalid instance that has no template but contains an instance that does have a template.

• Prevented the template of a nested instance being changed to a template that contains another instance of the nested instance's parent template or instance. Prevented conversion problem with nested instances. An instance that contains nested instances is prevented from being converted to an instance of any its nested instance's templates.

• Prevented instances from being copied or moved into another instance of the same template.

• When an instance is imported into its template, or into another instance of the same template, it is converted to a group. Any objects in the instance that aren't allowed in groups (e.g. abstract objects) are deleted.

• When an instance is imported and the referenced template does not exist, it is converted to a group. Any objects in the instance that aren't allowed in groups (e.g. abstract objects) are deleted.

• When an instance is imported and the referenced template does exist, the instance is repaired to ensure the instance is consistent with the template.

• When a group is imported into a template, internal references within the group are correctly patched in any instances of the template.

• An instance with no template configured but with children now causes an integrity error. Repairing any such instances will delete the children.

• Modified server startup to convert any invalid instances to groups.

• Fixed an upgrade problem, where template instances could get incorrectly converted to groups if the server licence was invalid, missing or too small for the server.

• Fixed an upgrade problem, where the server could crash if the repair phase resulted in objects being deleted from the database.

• Fixed an upgrade problem, where instances of templates could be deleted if the licence was invalid, missing, or too small for the database.

Crystal Reports

• Fixed server crash which occurs when the field in a Crystal Report trip sequence has a NULL string value.

• Fixed server crash which occurs when Crystal Report export format is ODBC, export destination is file on disk and the filename doesn't include a file extension.

Miscellaneous

• Modified ODBC driver to convert dates to timestamps when operating in local time.

• Fixed alarms so that changing the area of interest of an alarm from an AOI that a user has access to, to an AOI the user doesn't have access to removes the alarm any alarm list/banner that is on display.

• Added support for removing alarm response from the alarm bar/list in ViewX.

• Fixed OPC HDA Total and Time Average calculations to report the correct values when the underlying raw data is not aligned on the second boundary.

• Fixed server crash which occurs if an analogue point is configured with too many master-station alarm limits (more than 18).

• Improved embedded alarm list diagnostics to show changes in values to properties.

• Fixed a ViewX bug where updated mimic parameter values were not being written to non-shared embedded mimics.

• Fixed passing of parameter values to mimics via hyperlinks for grouped parameters in ViewXCtrl.

• Fixed exclusive control to work when requested via a standby server.

• Added support for Unicode dictionary files.

• Fixed crash in SNMP Manager Driver which occurred when reading an object of type IP Address. The formatting of IP Address values has also been modified so that something sensible is displayed.

• Modified ViewX to close any modal dialogs that are on display when an inactivity logout occurs.

• The pager driver has been modified to ensure it cannot attempt to shut down a channel thread twice. This could occur when the driver was shutting down but still sending a message.

• Fixed a possible server crash if a user's password expired whilst that user was logged on.

• New records added to data tables that reuse old deleted records are now erased, so the record does not contain the values of the old deleted record.

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