Applies To:
  • CitectSCADA 5.xx, 6.00
  • CitectHMI 5.xx, 6.00
Summary:
How do I generate logs to help with debugging the ABCLX driver? 

Solution:
There are many ways to log particular information with regard to the ABCLX driver. For simplicity this KB only covers the way to log all information however more detailed information is available in the ABCLX Driver Help. In your citect.ini file under the ABCLX section use the following parameters:

DebugLevel = ALL
DebugCategory = ALL
LogFileSize = 50000
LogTagInfo = 1

LogTagInfoPath = <Any valid path>.



Please note:

LogTagInfo will generate three files:

TAGLIST.TXT: shows all tags downloaded from PLC,

SUBSCRIBE.TXT: shows all tags subscribed,

OPT_BLOCKS.TXT: shows all optimised blocks the driver generated.



The file name will have [IOServerName]_[PortName]_ as prefix.

For example:

IOServer__p1_TagList.txt

IOServer__p1_subscribe.txt

IOServer__p1_opt_blocks.txt

LogTagInfoPath is the file path for the three files generated by LogTagInfo. If the directory does not exist, files will not be generated. (Default C:\ )

The parameters DEBUGLEVEL and DEBUGCATEGORY will also send tracelevel and trace category data to a file called ABCLX.log located in the windows system directory C:\Windows.

The logging described in this KB will allow a user to do things such as find bad tags, etc.

When generating logs it is best to ensure that you have deleted your abclx.log and abclx.bak files. Particularly when you are attempting to identify bad tags, you should start citect and wait until the device comes on line (this is viewable from inside the kernel>view>drivers window - refer to KB Q4035 which details how to use verbose mode in the kernel to see this information). It is important to shut down citect as quickly as possible after the device has come online so that you do not have too much information in your abclx.log file as you may overwrite it if you let it run too long. In the case if attempting to find a bad tag, open the ABCLX.log file in Excel and use autofilters to view the information in the log file by ERR and TAG. This will alert you to bad tags and inform you of why it is a bad tag (i.e. whether the tag does not exist in the PLC "Root tag not found", etc).

The columns in the ABCLX.log file are as follows:

DEBUGLEVEL DEBUGCATEGORY THREAD# DATE TIME FUNCTION_NAME DESCRIPTION

It is also possible to log different DebugLevels such as in the example below:

[ABCLX]
DebugLevel= WARNN|ERROR|TRACE
DebugCategory=ALL

For further information please refer to the ABCLX help section "Troubleshooting - Logging".

 
Keywords:
ABCLX, LOGGING, DEBUGGING  

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