Troubleshooting Communication using WWClient on IO or DA Servers

Problem Statement

Bad or No Communication to a IO or DA Server

Solution Details

Step by Step Guide of Troubleshooting Communication using WWCLIENT

You have to setup IO/DA Server to provide communications to your Wonderware Product. When you launch your Wonderware product you notice that you don’t have any communication to your product.

To start troubleshooting we need to retrieve the wwclient utility which we will use to test communication to the DA/IO Server.

We can get this Utility off of the Wonderware Device Integration CD 1 of 2. Once you insert the CD it will load a web interface menu.

On the tree on the left side expand Wonderware at the bottom. Then expand the diagnostic utility. Then Under the Installing Click the “WWCLIENT” Hyperlink. Save it to a location and extract the files.

Browse to the location you extracted the wwclient. You should have an icon of hands shaking. Double click on it and it will bring up a white screen with a menu bar.

Click Connections. Then Choose Create.

Under Connections we need to enter a Node, Application, and Topic. We also need to select a connection type.

Node: We will enter the computer name here that the DA/IO Server is running on

Application: We will enter the DA/IO Server we are using.Ex DASABCIP or MBENET (In the example testprot is being used.)

Topic: We will enter the topic we entered into our DA/IO Server

Connection Type: Choose IOT. This is Wonderware’s Suitelink Protocol.

Click Create.

After clicking create we will get two possible responses.

This response from the DA/IO with 0x00000000 means that there is no connection to the DA/IO Server

A few things we can check are

• Is the DA/IO Server started?
• Check the Settings for Node, Application, Topic and Connection.

The other response we can get is:

0x003d5818 or similar to this means there is valid connection to the DA/IO Server.

Once there is a valid connection to the DA/IO Server we can then check for valid address in the PLC to see if data is able to be advised.

Click on Item on the Wonderware Client Menu It will bring up the item box below.

The Connections box will show the connection to your current DA/IO Server. In the Item box you can enter your plc item address. (Ex. TankLevel, N:2, etc). The Item being tested here is r00 which is a real. In the drop down box to the right we can choose which type of tag we are advising. We have selected Real. Now we can click “AdviseEx” This will return a response.

After clicking “AdviseEx” one line was returned from the address “r00”. At the right there is a hex number with “0x00c0” This is the quality field and confirms we have good quality to the address in the PLC. Directly under help menu we will see value coming from the address and that is what is expected to be seen.

Other Numbers we can get in the quality field are: 

If you get any quality other than good you will have to check PLC to see if there are any issues. If you don’t get any return from the PLC address it is most likely incorrect or that PLC address doesn’t exist. Double check your address.

If you have any issues contact your local Wonderware support.