Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

[email protected] · Wed, 24 Jul 2002 08:41:06 +0200

Dear Cheng,

let me first say, that 1.7.1 is a pretty old version - but nevertheless, it
should work anyway...

The most recent version (available on http://mesa53.lanl.gov/lansce8/epics/Archiver/Default.htm)
is 1.9.1 and I would suggest to install this version instead.

But most probably this alone won't solve your problem.

The problem you report looks like that the ArchiveEngine is not receiving
any CA-monitors at all. 

Especially for ai-records (analog-records in general) the difference
between the ArchiveEngine and e.g. medm is, that the Archiver uses DBE_LOG
as an event-mask while display-managers use DBE_VALUE.

This means, that display managers receive monitors when the new value of
the monitored record differs from the last-posted value by more than the
monitor-deadband MDEL. 
The archiver on the other hand receives monitors when the new value of
the monitored record differs from the last-posted value by more than the
archive-deadband ADEL.

MDEL and ADEL are both fields of the "ai" and "ao" records and should be
set properly. I assume that for some reason ADEL is set to a value greater
than 0.0 (0.0 is the default) in your installation.
I'd suggest to set both fields to 0.0 to see whether the behaviour changes
(e.g. with your second example, you should see 1 value per second as the
values change).

If ADEL is currently set to 0.0 while you observe your problem, I'd suggest
to install the most recent version of the ChannelArchiver to see if the
problem is related to things Kay fixed in any release since 1.7.1.

So long,
Thomas

>>>>> Cheng Weixing <[email protected]> wrote:

    > I have encounted a problem of recording channels while using
    > ChannelArchive(version 1.7.1).

    > QDR1:INT-AVG ; QDR1:X-AVG ; QDR1:Y-AVG are three ai record, they all
    > scanned at a period of 1 second.And I can use MEDM to monitor these
    > channels,it's working well.

    > While I try to use channelArchiver to record these channel, it seems
    > there have some problems. I have tried to use different config files,
    > but none of them worked. Here is what I have done:

    > 1. step 1.
    > edit the epics.cfg file ,including these lines to archive 3 channels.
    > ------------------
    > QDR1:INT-AVG
    > QDR1:X-AVG
    > QDR1:Y-AVG
    > -------------------

    > then start to record the channels using command:

    > $ArchiveEngine epics.cfg dbpm_data_dir

    > and I can view and config the channels http://localhost:4812/
    > Waiting for several minutes, using http://localhost:4812/stop to end the
    > archiver

    > Using ArchiveExport to export the archived dbpm_data_dir:

    > $ArchiveExport -text -output dbpm_data dbpm_data_dir

    > the contents of dbpm_data is like this:
    > ---------------------------------------
    > Time QDR1:INT-AVG [digits] Status QDR1:X-AVG [mm] Status QDR1:Y-AVG [mm] Status
    > 7/24/2002 11:05:11.024723023 5073   0.0286811   0.00344885 
    > 7/24/2002 11:05:12.000000000 5073   0.0286811   0.00344885 
    > 7/24/2002 11:05:13.000000000 5073   0.0286811   0.00344885 
    > 7/24/2002 11:05:14.000000000 5073   0.0286811   0.00344885 
    > 7/24/2002 11:05:15.000000000 5073   0.0286811   0.00344885 
    > 7/24/2002 11:05:16.000000000 5073   0.0286811   0.00344885 
    > 7/24/2002 11:05:17.000000000 5073   0.0286811   0.00344885 
    > .....
    > ----------------------------------------

    > The value of these three channels never changed?

    > 2. step 2.
    > change epics.cfg to :
    > ---------------------
    > QDR1:INT-AVG 1 Monitor
    > QDR1:X-AVG 1 Monitor
    > QDR1:Y-AVG 1 Monitor
    > ---------------------

    > follow the operation as in step 1. 

    > The exported dbpm_data:
    > ------------------------------------------------------
    > Time QDR1:INT-AVG [digits] Status QDR1:X-AVG [mm] Status QDR1:Y-AVG [mm] Status
    > 7/24/2002 11:15:04.014441653 5071   0.0286927   0.00266235 
    > -------------------------------------------------------

    > no matter how long lasted, there have only one line in the file.

    > 3. step 3.
    > Using 5 seconds scan in epics.cfg:
    > -------------------
    > QDR1:INT-AVG 5
    > QDR1:X-AVG 5
    > QDR1:Y-AVG 5
    > --------------------

    > And now the contents of dbpm_data is :
    > -------------------------------------------------------------
    > Time QDR1:INT-AVG [digits] Status QDR1:X-AVG [mm] Status QDR1:Y-AVG [mm] Status
    > 7/24/2002 11:18:53.011652405 5072   0.0284897   0.00256317 
    > 7/24/2002 11:18:55.000000000 5072   0.0284897   0.00256317 
    > 7/24/2002 11:19:00.000000000 5072   0.0284897   0.00256317 
    > 7/24/2002 11:19:05.000000000 5072   0.0284897   0.00256317 
    > 7/24/2002 11:19:10.000000000 5072   0.0284897   0.00256317 
    > 7/24/2002 11:19:15.000000000 5072   0.0284897   0.00256317 
    > 7/24/2002 11:19:20.000000000 5072   0.0284897   0.00256317
    > ---------------------------------------------------------------
    > It is similar to step1.

    > 4. step 4.
    > Set epics.cfg to 5 seconds monitor:
    > --------------------------
    > QDR1:INT-AVG 5 Monitor
    > QDR1:X-AVG 5 Monitor
    > QDR1:Y-AVG 5 Monitor
    > ---------------------------

    > the export dbpm_data is like this:
    > ------------------------------------------------------------
    > Time QDR1:INT-AVG [digits] Status QDR1:X-AVG [mm] Status QDR1:Y-AVG
    > 7/24/2002 11:22:27.007671187 5076   0.0291571   0.00354628 
    > -------------------------------------------------------------

    > (Note:between different steps, I have deleted the old dbpm_data and dbpm_data_dir. so the new output file dbpm_data have no relationship with the old one)

    > We can see that the channel value changed in different steps, but it can't record the correct value for individual step. I don't know what's wrong with it, can you help me?

    > BTW: I can use ChannelArchive to record the example channel "$(USER):aiExample" or "$(USER):calcExample". it works very well while include these two channels. And also they scaned at a period of 1 second, so I really amazing about it.

    > Best Regards,
    > Cheng Weixing
    > /**********************************************/
    > P.O. Box 800-204,Shanghai, P.R.China 201800
    > Beam Instrumentation Group, SSRF
    > Email: [email protected]
    > Tel:(86-21)5955 3998-Ext449
    > /**********************************************/

-- 
___________________________________________________________________________
 /homas Birke                                   [email protected]

Berliner Elektronenspeicherringgesellschaft für Synchrotronstrahlung m.b.H.

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Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System