Panels-hard reset.

Thomas Hayes · May 2007

Hello all
I still have a few panels that will drop offline every now and than. I'm thinking of writting code(if possible) that will monitor 'offline' events and if the event lasts for more than 45 sec's to toggle the power to the panel. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

annuello · May 2007

Are your panels locking up, or are you just loosing your network conenction? (Swap a known "good" panel with a known bad one. See if the problem moves with the panel, or stays with the network location.) If they are locking up, I'd try reloading the current firmware first. If that doesn't work, then the power-kill approach seems like an "okay" temporary solution. (Not really nice, but it should work.)

If the issue is network quality, I would be a bit more hesitant at the power-kill. See if the dept that provides IP infrastructure can improve their service. My CV7s (wired) rarely drop offline. Perhaps once briefly every 6 months. There is a moderate delay between the panel & master making a successful connection. I guess 45 seconds would be sufficient.

A few things to remember in the online event:
1. Cancel your "offline" actions (via a named wait) in case the panel comes back online before the wait time in the offline event.
2. Give the panel a few seconds (5) after coming online, then resync it with the current state & settings of your master.

Yours,
Roger McLean
Swinburne University

Thomas Hayes · June 2007

I have had several panels do this. They have been swapped out, firmware updated, telnet removed, you name it it's been tried. The panels are completely locked up since not only do they loose any form of control but the front button also does not respond to touch.

dthorson · June 2007

Power?

What type of panel is it? Do you have sufficient power?

Sounds like this could be the cause of the symptoms your describing.

DHawthorne · June 2007

I had this problem quite frequently with a job that had about a dozen CV-12's. They would lock up randomly and frequently; sometimes they just dropped offline, sometimes they locked entirely. I determined, in the end, that it was a power quality problem. The customer's electrical service was strained to it's limit, and every time something big turned on (AC compressor, etc.) lights would dim for a second, things like that. If the voltage drop was sufficient, it scrambled the panels ... not enough drop for them to fully reboot, but enough that parts of them reset, and others did not.

There was no UPS that could handle the load of a dozen CV-12's for more than a few seconds that wasn't ridiculously big. I solved it by powering the entire set of them on a car battery, which in turn had a permanently installed charger attached to it. Haven't had a lockup since, and that was a year ago.

Thomas Hayes · June 2007

Power should be fine, I am using UPS and surgeX on the systems. I am using the AMX 6.x PS which in most casses are less than 20' away with #18 cable.

NMarkRoberts · June 2007

DHawthorne wrote:

There was no UPS that could handle the load of a dozen CV-12's for more than a few seconds that wasn't ridiculously big. I solved it by powering the entire set of them on a car battery, which in turn had a permanently installed charger attached to it.

Hmmmm... wouldn't that be a ridiculously big but home-made 12v UPS?

Brent Simpson · June 2007

Devices Dropping Offline

Hi Thomas,
We've had similar problems in the past but with the older DMS keypads dropping Offline. I wrote a simple piece of code that monitored the OnLine/OffLine status of the actual devices - not the virtual Device, and if more then 3 of the 12 DMS's dropped offline, it rebooted the MVP-8400, and NI-4000. This allowed the system to restart and get everything back on line and in most cases the client didn't even realise something had happened.

Subsequently I discovered the electricains had pulled a pile of data cable through with power cables. Transient spikes (mainly from relays driving fluroescent tubes) were being generated and transferred into the data network, corrupting the data - hence the keypads fell offline.

I'm currently working on filters and other 'tweaks' to deal with the problem without recabling!.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Brent

DHawthorne · June 2007

NMarkRoberts wrote:

Hmmmm... wouldn't that be a ridiculously big but home-made 12v UPS?

Yes, that was the entire point. The biggest off-the-shelf UPS would only run them all for a few seconds ... we are talking nearly 20 amps, after all. A car battery can handle it easily.

jjames · June 2007

Thomas,

We're running into somewhat of the same problem. All of the panels we've had issues with were CV7s, and I've noticed that if they haven't been used for quite some time - they completely lock up and they have to be unplugged. There is probably a period of about 3 weeks between visits from the client - so I wonder if the lack of use has anything to do with it?

Panels-hard reset.

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