The System Alarm

In the IGSS software, there is an object called System. This object is used by the IGSS system to generate alarms under specific conditions.

The System object, which is a predefined analog object, can be viewed in the Object Browser in the Definition program. If this object is deleted or renamed, the IGSS system will crash and freeze up until the object is restored.

A system alarm is triggered from the System object under the following four conditions.

When the amount of free space on the hard disk of the IGSS single user or server PC is nearly gone
When the path to the IGSS application’s report folder is incorrect
When there are insufficient Windows user permissions given to the report folder when running in a multi-user environment
When the occurrence of an Event in the Event list is also to be displayed in the Active Alarm list

Let’s look at the alarm messages displayed for each situation.

1. Insufficient hard disk space

When the IGSS system registers a low level of hard disk space, then the System alarm is triggered after activating the IGSS Starter $images\IGSSStarter_icon.gif$ . The message looks like this:

$images\System_alarm_All_log_Stop.gif$

Figure 1: Basic System alarm message

You must then shut the IGSS system down and remove enough files from the hard disk to free up at least 20% of hard disk capacity. Then start the IGSS system up again.

The occurrence of this alarm by itself is rare because hard disk capacity nowadays is hardly ever exceeded by normal SCADASupervisory Control & Data Acquisition systems.

However, the alarm is triggered in connection with the presence of other conditions, which need attention by the user. These are described in the next two cases.

2. Error in connection with the IGSS application’s report folder: cannot find the report folder

When this situation occurs, the ALL LOGGING STOPPED alarm, as shown in Figure 1 above, will be triggered as well as a dialog box with an alarm message. When this happens, the ALL LOGGING STOPPED alarm can be ignored as the true cause of the alarm state.

This alarm arises typically when configuring a multi-user system and looks like this:

$images\System_alarm_cannotfind_repfolder.gif$

Figure 2: Cannot find the report folder warning

This message indicates that the path to the IGSS application’s report folder has somehow been incorrectly keyed in. Therefore, check first in the System Configuration module on the server PC on the Configuration tab under Report folder. Check the following two things:

Make sure that you’ve correctly keyed in the UNC path to the report folder, i.e. \\<IP address>or <PC name>\<report folder name>\

Remember to include the last forward slash after the name of the report folder.

Make sure that you’ve spelled everything correctly

This should remedy the problem.

3. Error in connection with the IGSS application’s report folder: access denied

When this situation occurs, the ALL LOGGING STOPPED alarm, as shown above, will be triggered as well as a dialog box with an alarm message. When this happens, the ALL LOGGING STOPPED alarm can be ignored as the true cause of the alarm state.

This alarm arises typically when configuring a multi-user system and looks like this:

$images\System_alarm_Accessdenied_torepfold.gif$

Figure 3: Access denied warning

This message indicates that sharing and/or setting of permissions on the report folder has not been correctly carried out. Do the following:

Use Windows Explore to find the folder where the IGSS application resides.
Right click on the folder name and choose Sharing and Security…
Share the folder and then click on the Permissions button to set user permissions to Full Control.
Click OK to save and exit.

This should remedy the problem.

4. Display an Event in the Active Alarms list

This last example of the triggering of a System alarm is not related to an error situation. Here the System object is used to display the occurrence of an Event in the Active Alarms list. For a detailed explanation click this link Event.