Definitions

• Adapter Generic for the EZ-Ethernet or EZ-Ethernet-Plus card.
• Panel Generic name for the AVG EZ Touch Control Panel and its corresponding interface to an adapter.
• Page Operation The method by which the panel instructs the adapter to process the data associated with symbols configured on any given screen. This process is controlled by the panel incrementing a sequence number. This number is expected to be one greater than the current sequence number.
• Slave Any generic MODBUS/TCP device that processes requests made by the EZ-Ethernet-Plus Adapter.

Panel User Interface Messages

Here is the complete list of EZ-Ethernet-Plus message with quick suggestions as to the corrective action (if any) the user should take. The most important of this list are explained in more detail in the next section.

0. "Operation successful" 
No action required

1. "Missed at least one frame”
No action required

2. "Adapter could not lock Shared Ram"
Reduce load on the system. 

3. "ECOM ID is not responding"
Check for poor network or overloaded ECOMs.

7. "No ECOMs defined"
Download ECOM configuration using EZ-Touch

8. "No Items to process"
Add tags using EZ-Touch

9. "No gateway address"
Add gateway 

14. "Node ID is online"
No action required

15. "Node ID : No more ECOM buffers"
Lessen load on ECOM.

19. "Critical. No more transaction buffers"
Spread tags over different screens.

26. "Did not receive response from tag write"
Check network, ECOM load and PLC scan time.

27. "Adapter write Queue Overflow"
Check network, ECOM load and PLC scan time

28. "Adapter Read Queue Overflow"
Check network, ECOM load and PLC scan time.

32. "Write tag retry count exceeded"
Check anything that could slow down communications. If no problem found, increase the Timeout for the node.

33. "Exceeded system tag limit"
She has all she can hold, folks.

34. "PLC not in TERM; Tag write inhibited"
Put PLC into TERM mode.

36. "Read tag retry count exceeded"
Same as message number 32.

38. "Illegal MODBUS address"
Remove tag with illegal address

39. "MODBUS transmit buffer overflow"
Poor network, excessive PLC scan times or downloading recipes in rapid secession. 

Error Messages – More detail.

This section contains messages text that may be seen on the panel message line. Each message is followed by an explanation and a list of one or more possible solutions. Note that the messages are listed in order based the likelihood of occurring.

"PLC(s) Offline ?,….? ”
(Where ? …? can be any combination of PLCs 1,2,3…10.) The adapter cannot establish basic communications with the target PLC’s ECOM. This is a generic message and could be caused by several problems.

• Wrong version ECOM firmware
• An address mode configuration mismatch
• Gateway problems
• Cable break
• An extremely busy ECOM. Understand what is flowing through the ECOM in addition to the communications with the panel.

"Read tag retry count exceeded”
The EZ-Ethernet adapter is not receiving one or more expected responses from tag read request(s) within the user configurable number of retries. Situation may be improved by increasing the timeout for the PLC via EZ-Touch EZ-Ethernet Configuration Utility. The timeout setting indicates the maximum time in milliseconds the adapter waits on a response to a read command. It should be noted that the timeout is not a scan rate. The adapter still processes reads as quickly as possible. However, increasing the timeout will help reduce the number of messages seen by the user. The balance is to increase the timeout to a point long enough to allow a response from a system, but not so long as to make for sluggish responses in the case of legitimate lost packets.

• Excessive PLC Scan Time. As scan times increase, it takes longer for the ECOM to collect data requested by the adapter. Decrease PLC scan time, if possible.
• Excessive panels servicing a single ECOM - As the number of panels attached to a single ECOM increases, the ECOM has fewer buffers dedicated per adapter. User should consider adding addition ECOMs.
• Excessive user programming sucking bandwidth from the ECOM - WX/WY programming that is servicing many points very quickly. User should consider adding addition ECOMs.
• Poor quality network with lots or collisions. This includes the scenario of using the Internet as part of the link. 

"Write tag retry count exceeded”
The EZ-Ethernet adapter did not receive a tag write confirmation from the ECOM within the user configurable timeout period for the number of retries specified. This does not mean that the write did not occur. Rather, it indicates that the adapter cannot verify that the write took place. Solutions similar to “Read tag retry count exceeded” message.

• Excessive PLC Scan Time. - As scan times increase, it takes longer for the ECOM to collect data requested by the adapter. Decrease PLC scan time, if possible.
• Excessive panels servicing a single ECOM - As the number of panels attached to a single ECOM increases, the ECOM has fewer buffers dedicated per adapter. User should consider adding addition ECOMs.
• Poor quality network with lots or collisions. This includes the scenario of using the Internet for part of the link. 

"PLC not in term: Tag write inhibited”
Adapter only allows writes to PLC that are in terminal mode. 

• Have user place PLC in terminal mode.

"Missed at least one frame”
The adapter failed to process at least one page request by the panel. A “page request”, in this context, can be thought of as a panel screen change.

• The user will very likely see this error one time immediately after reloading the adapter’s operating system firmware. This is normal since the panel and the adapter must resynchronize their corresponding sequence numbers. No corrective action is needed.
• The user could see this if the adapter is so busy that it misses a screen change. That is, if the adapter is extremely busy and the user does several screen changes rapidly the adapter could fail to see one for the intermediate screen changes and flag the error. However, the last screen (current screen) will be okay and should operate as normal. Corrective action in this case would be to lessen the load on the panel, if possible.

"Adapter not responding”
The panel is not receiving updates from the adapter in a timely fashion (I believe the maximum wait is 2 seconds, but check with AVG if needed). This indicates a very serious problem is occurring in the adapter. A panel reboot is often needed to clear the error. However, prevention is the key to preventing it from reoccurring.

• Could result from the user failing to correct other issues. For example, if the user is seeing lots of "Read tag retry count exceeded” errors, the system could degrade to a point where the adapter is so busy handling retries that it cannot service the panel. 

"No ECOMs defined”
Indicates a mismatch between the panel program and the adapter ECOM configuration. Specifically, the panel has tags it wishes to process but the adapter does not have ANY ECOMs configured. This should only occur if the user installs a new or non-configured adapter into a panel that has an existing program.

• User should download the appropriate configuration to the adapter via the EZ-Touch Configuration Utility.

"Critical – No more transaction buffers”
The adapter has exhausted its pool of memory buffers allocated for transaction processing This occurs if too many tags are placed on a single screen AND those tags are highly diverse as per type and address. While very rare, this would most likely occur if the user has several recipes configured on a single screen and the recipes use a widely mixed number of tag types with non-contiguous PLC addresses. 

• Spread tags across multiple screens.
• Use contiguous memory within the PLC when possible.

"Exceeded system tag limit”
User attempted to access a screen that contains 700 or more tags. While this is highly unlikely, it could happen if the user has a single screen with a huge number of recipes and each recipe contains the maximum number of tags (20).

• Spread the load (tags) over multiple screens.

EZ-Ethernet-Plus Specific Messages

“Illegal MODBUS address"
The EZ-Ethernet-Plus adapter received an exception response to a read or a write request it issued. The slave issues the exception when it detects an illegal address in a request packet. The fix is to remove the tag causing the problem. 

"Illegal MODBUS function code"
The EZ-Ethernet-Plus adapter received an exception response for a read or a write request it issued due to an illegal MODBUS function code detected by the slave. 

"MODBUS transmit buffer overflow"
One or more TCP connection has a full transmit buffer and is thus losing data. This is a serious condition that could lead to a severe degradation of the adapter’s throughput. The most likely cause of this problem would be an operator downloading recipes in rapid secession on a busy system. 

EZ-Touch Ethernet Configuration Messages

This section contains messages that may be seen by the user when configuring the EZ-Ethernet adapter via the EZ-Touch PC package. Each message is followed by an explanation and a list of one or more possible solutions. 

"EZ-Ethernet Adapter is not responding”
The user attempted to download a configuration into the adapter, but the adapter is not responding to the request. 

• This is very likely a network problem. Use NetEdit to ensure the configuration of the adapter card matches the configuration in the EZ-Ethernet network configuration screen.

"Selected device is NOT an EZ-Touch Ethernet adapter”
User attempted to download to a device other than an EZ-Ethernet adapter. This message is the result of two or more network devices having duplicate network identification.

• If address mode in Module ID, make sure the ID for the adapter is unique across the network. Be sure to check for hard switched module id’s. 
• If Node Name addressing is used, the adapter has a unique name.
• If the address mode is IP, make sure the IP address is unique across the network.

“Error reading EZ-Ethernet Adapter device definition!”
The Configuration software could not ascertain the device definition from the adapter. It must complete this step before the download may proceed. This could be a by-product of having duplicate addressing id’s.

• Make sure address identifier used by the adapter is unique.
• Remove adapter from panel and reinstall. Retry download.

"Error opening HEIDevice!”

• Low layer protocol communications failure.

“Error opening HEITransport!”

• Low layer protocol communications failure.

“Download failed with error ???”
(Where ??? is most likely 0x8006). Configuration failed on the actual write. All the prerequisite protocol “opens” worked correctly, but the transfer of data to the adapter failed. Error 0x8006 indicates a timeout occurred during the actual data transfer, indicating that the adapter is too busy to process the download. 

• error = 0x8006 - If the panel is actively scanning PLCs, try the download with the panel isolated from the control nodes. Also, look for messages on the panel that may indicate a load problem.

“Error unpacking configuration file”
The EZ-Touch Configuration Utility could not open or could not process its PC based configuration file and thus could not display the previous configuration data. 

• Check version of EZEther.dll and upgrade if not already the latest. If this fails to fix the problem, the user must re-enter the configuration data and save.