I invoke all OPC DA experts | X20 series

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Well, I have a big problem that affects several factories in several countries.

We have production lines that use Battlenfeld X20 CP3484 with Automation PCs running Windows XP.

This was configured a long time ago by someone from Engineering together with the supplier, but there is no one else available and I do not have the source code, nor am I an expert on the subject.

  • Currently this XP computer runs PVI Runtime 3.0.2 32-bit with TCP/IP enabled.

  • Our goal is just to read some PLC tags and have them in Kepware 6.

Someone came to the conclusion that to send the data to Kepware we needed to install PVI Runtime on the same server as Kepware, and that is what was done, currently in the licensed version 2.6.

The mapping of all tags and structure was done with the OPC Configurator that is embedded in the same PVI installation.
In this case, I understand that we are using OPC DA 2 as the communication protocol, and I have known that it is not ideal for a long time.

Our problem is that we can receive data on KW as long as someone is logged into the server.

I did a lot of research and consulted with the KW and B&R vendors, and what they suggested was to check all the DCOM configurations, which was done but did not solve the problem. And they said that another solution would be to replace the PLCs.

I consulted another company in our holding company, and they also have the same problem there.

To try to solve the problem of the open session, we created a server to act between the Automation PC and the application server that runs KW, to keep a generic user always logged in and restrict communication in order to have more cybersecurity.

However, even with the user logged in, the session open, and the PVI Runtime running, the data transmission still stopped until we manually opened an RDP session.

  • I installed PVI 3.0.2 in order to have the same version as an attempt to solve the problem, but I can’t map the tags on this OPC server, because apparently the new version no longer has the OPC Configurator, I don’t have the knowledge to recreate these tags and I couldn’t find much material on the internet about it.
  • I heard that if I created the structure in the .OPCS file I would be able to map the tags, but I don’t have the knowledge to do that and, anyway, it would just be a test.
  • I looked for this .OPCS file on the Automation PC that is connected to the PLC, but it simply doesn’t exist.

Have you ever had this problem?
Is there any way I can use another protocol like OPC UA, or Modbus to read the tags from these Automation PCs?
I heard of someone who used a Siemens PLC connected to the B&R PLC for this purpose.

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In the distant past I communicated following information to a customer with a similar problem:
If the OPC-client and the OPC-server are running on the same pc, there is one dcom setting which is very important and
that is the identity setting.

When this settings is on set on “the lauching user” the PVIOPC is started with the same rights as the Service which
starts the PVIOPC.(so as a service).

Probably this setting is now the interactive user and then the user has to be logged in.

Could you do some tests with this setting on "the lauching user " ?

The OPCS file used since PVI 3.0 (OPC DA 3.0 )can be generated in AS 3 or 4: