9. FAQ, Tips

9.1. Help in case of a problem

If you have a problem with EC-Engineer or something does not run as expected, please try first the following things:

  • Read messages in message window

  • Increase message level Menu -> Settings -> All Messages

  • Read log file for more information Menu -> Messages -> Log File

  • Restart EC-Engineer and try to do it again

  • Contact support by sending a mail to ecsupport@acontis.com and attach the following information

    • Project file .ecc

    • EC-Engineer Version Menu -> About

    • Log file Menu -> Messages -> Log File

    • Short description how the reproduce it

9.2. Internal Settings

EC-Engineer saves all internal settings in EcEngineerWeb.xml. In this file, the user can find additional settings, which can be helpful for solving some problems:

MasterUnitLocalCycleTime = 1

Bus cycle time of the internal master in seconds

MasterUnitLocalWorkerSleepTimeMs = 100

Cycle time of the local master thread in milliseconds

MasterUnitRemoteWorkerSleepTimeMs = 300

Cycle time of the remote master thread in milliseconds

MasterUnitTimerNormalCount = 4

Time shift to cycle time of the normal refresh cycle

E.g. local master = 100 ms, normal refresh cycle is every 400 ms

Used e.g. for updating master information, error counters of slave, …

MasterUnitTimerSlowerCount = 20

Time shift to cycle time of the slower refresh cycle

E.g. local master = 100 ms, slower refresh cycle is every 2 seconds

Used e.g. for updating the slave information, EEPROM data register data, …

MasterUnitTimerSlowestCount = 120

Time shift to cycle time of the slowest refresh cycle

E.g. local master = 100 ms, slower refresh cycle is every 12 seconds

Used e.g. for updating the CoE Object Dictionary, …

MasterUnitScanBusTimeout = 5000

Timeot for bus scan in milliseconds

MasterUnitMailboxTimeout = 5000

Timeout for mailbox access in milliseconds

MasterUnitStateChangeTimeout = 5000

Timeout for changing state machines in milliseconds

MasterUnitRegisterTimeout = 3000

Timeout for register access in milliseconds

MasterUnitProcessDataTimeout = 1000

Timeout for process data access in milliseconds

MasterUnitEepromTimeout = 3000

Timeout for EEPROM access in milliseconds

MasterUnitRasCycleTime = 0

Internal RAS cycle time for polling

MasterUnitRasWatchDog = 0

Internal RAS watchdog interval

MasterUnitRasWdToLimit = 0

Internal RAS watchdog limit

DiagGeneralErrorLvlLostLink = 10

Theshold value for the “Lost Link Errors”, which leads to an error

DiagGeneralWarningLvlLostLink = 1

Theshold value of the “Lost Link Errors”, which leads to a warning

DiagGeneralErrLvlRxError = 10

Theshold value for the “RX Errors”, which leads to an error

DiagGeneralWarnLvlRxError = 0.001

Theshold value of the “RX Errors”, which leads to a warning

DiagGeneralErrLvlInvalidFrame = 10

Theshold value for the “Invalid Frames”, which leads to an error

DiagGeneralWarnLvlInvalidFrame = 0.001

Theshold value of the “Invalid Frames”, which leads to a warning

DiagGeneralErrLvlProcUnitErr = 1000

Theshold value for the “Processing Unit Errors”, which leads to an error

DiagGeneralWarnLvlProcUnitErr = 100

Theshold value of the “Processing Unit Errors”, which leads to a warning

MasterDebugMessageLevel = 0

Activates extended debug messages of the EC-Master (0 = Silent, 1 = Any, 2 = Critical, 3 = Error, 4 = Warning, 5 = Info, 6 = InfoApi, 7 = Verbose, 8 = VerboseCyc)

GuiDebugMessageLevel = 0

Activates extended debug messages of the GUI (0 = Off, 1 = Errors, 2 = All)

IndentXmlFiles = False

Activates indenting of XML files (makes exported XML files readable, but increases size)

EnhancedUtf8Support = False

Activates the enhanced UTF8 support, which might be necessary if characters will be not displayed correctly

9.3. FAQ

Here you can find solutions of possible problems:

  • The integrated EC-Master does not react as estimated

    Increase the message level Menu -> Settings -> All Messages and try it again.

  • EC-Engineer reports a message with ErrCode: 0x…

    Error Codes comes directly from the EC-Master. If you want to know what to know how to solve this problem, please refer the manual of EC-Master.

  • EC-Engineer reports the following message: Not all EtherCAT slave devices are in operational state

    Check if all slaves have a green icon. If the color is not green, open tab Diagnosis Slave General. Here you can see the error state of the slave. If it has no error, try to change the state to OP again.

  • EC-Engineer reports the following message: Changing topology failed: Bus configuration mismatch (ErrCode: 0x9811001E)

    The configured bus and the currently connected bus does not match. Please open the Menu -> Network Network Mismatch Analyzer to solve the problem.

  • EC-Engineer reports the following message: Slave ‘…’ has unexpected state (Current state: ‘…’, Expected state: ‘…’)

    Select the slave and open the tab General. Here you can see the error state of the slave. If it has no error, try to change the state again.

  • Slave reports the error state: “Sync manager watchdog” (Diagnosis Slave General)

    You need a realtime operating system. If you still want to use your slave on Windows, you can turn off this watchdog Slave -> Advanced Settings: Set PDI Watchdog = 0).

  • How can I configure the modules of a BK1120 slave?

    EC-Engineer supports only the MDP-Version of BK1120 slave. If you want to add this slave, enter “BK1120” into the search field, enable option “Show Hidden Slaves” and double-click on slave “BK1120 EtherCAT Fieldbus Coupler (MDP)” (Revision Number: 0x120001). The modules of this slave can be configured in tab Modules like in all other MDP slaves.

    If you have one of the other versions of BK1120 and you want to use it, please contact our support.

  • How can I update the firmware of my slave via FoE?
    For updating the firmware of your slave via FoE, please follow these steps:

    • Enable diagnosis mode

    • Set master state to INIT

    • Select your slave, and set his state machine to BOOTSTRAP

    • Enter path of file on slave (optional)

    • Enter password (optional)

    • Press button Download (it will open the FileOpen-Dialog, where you can choose the file which contains the new firmware and uploads this file)

  • Connect to local system is not possible

    Is WinPcap installed? It must be WinPcap 4.1 or higher must be installed.

    Is at least one network adapter installed?

  • Why is the process image size different between EC-Engineer and EC-Master?

    EC-Engineer shows on tab Process Data Image not the real size of the process data image. It show only the offsets and the size of the variables.

    If you want to get the real size of the process data image, which is used from EC-Master, you have to look into the ENI file: EtherCATConfig/Config/ProcessImage/Inputs/ByteSize or EtherCATConfig/Config/ProcessImage/Outputs/ByteSize. This is the offset + size of the last variable and additional administration data depending on the slaves which are used (ALStatus, DC Support, Mailbox, …).

  • EC-Engineer reports the following message: Failed to query EtherCAT Slaves. No slaves found.

    • Verify that WinPcap is correctly installed.

    • Try to restart you operating system, because this is sometimes necessary if you e.g. using a USB network adapter

    • Increase the message level Menu -> Settings -> All Messages

    • Turn on debug message of the master

      • Stop “EC-Engineer”

      • Set “MasterDebugMessageLevel” to “7” (verbose) in %ProgramData%/EC-Engineer/user.myusername.xml

      • Start “EC-Engineer” again

  • EC-Engineer reports the following message: Network scan successful - 0 slaves found.

    Make sure you have connected the input and not the output port of your first slave to the computer.

    Open “Network and Internet Connections Network Connections” and open the properties of your network adapter and uncheck all protocols except “Internet Protocol (TCP/IPv4)”
    _images/faq.png
    Do you have TwinCAT installed on this machine?
    Open “Compatible Devices”:
    _images/faq_2.png
    Uninstall or disable the “TwinCAT RT-Ethernet Adapter” for your network adapter:
    _images/faq_3.png

    If this doesn’t help, try to disable the “TwinCAT RT-Ethernet Driver” in the properties of your network adapter and reboot your system.

    Run EC-Engineer with administrative rights? Does it help?

    Do you have a some kind of security software (like firewall, antivirus, …) installed on this machine?

    Try to turn it off and check if problem is solved

    Do you have problems on sending or receiving pakets?

    Install “Wireshark” and check which pakets are missing

    Do you have only problems on sending packets?

    Try to exclude ethernet protocol type “0x88a4” from your firewall. For more information see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EtherCAT/

    Try it with Npcap instead of WinPcap. Make sure you chose “Install Npcap in WinPcap API-compatible Mode”

  • How can I create ENI files for slaves from the Beckhoff CX5000 series?

    The ENI file of those slaves must start with an Ebus slave, but EC-Master exports only an MII port. This problem can be solved by first adding a helper slave “EK1200”. The “real” EBus slaves can be connected afterwords to this helper slave.

  • Ubuntu doesn’t show any images. What can I do?
    On Ubuntu (and other Linuxes) you may need to install those libraries:

    • sudo apt install libc6-dev

    • sudo apt install libgdiplus

  • MacOS doesn’t show any images. What can I do?
    On MacOS you may need to install the library ‘libgdiplus’:

    brew install mono-libgdiplus

    If package manager ‘Homebrew’ is not installed, enter:

    /usr/bin/ruby -e "$ (curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install )

  • WebAdmin in Dongle-Version shows page not found, what can I do?

    On 64 bit systems the “WebAdmin” is not included into the MergeModule of WIBU, it must be installed by downloading and installing the “Code Meter Runtime” from WIBU https://www.wibu.com/

  • UTF8 characters e.g. in variables or PDOs will be not displayed correctly

    This requires the enhanced UTF8 support and can be enabled by setting “EnhancedUtf8Support = True”, see Internal Settings

  • Ubuntu 22.04 reports “No usable version of libssl was found”. What can I do?
    .NET core 3.1 supports only OpenSSL 1. It can be installed manually: