Diagnostic Utility - Errors

I was running the Traffic Analyser in Diagnostic Utility last night and it returned a report with

Count Average Rate Peak Rate
Errors 3 0.0 per second 1 per second
Messages 90 0.7 per second 8 per second

I searched on the forum to see if there is any document or thead discussing Traffic errors what coud be the cause.


Any ideas?

 

Josh

A key piece of missing information is how long did you run the analyser for? From what you've posted I'm guessing that you ran the diagnostic tool for about 2 minutes?

For starters, there's a bug in the Diagnostic utility that always registers 1 error when the analyser starts running, so your real number of communication errors is 2.

You won't be losing any data because in C-Bus there is a very good mechanism of message acknowledgement, retries, and all other kinds of klever jelly beans to ensure your messages gets to where they needs to go, even when the quality of the installation is sub-standard.

Do you have any Touch Screens connected to your network? Given that they're such busy beasts, every once in a while they tell the network "Hang on a moment, I'm a smidge busy, can you please blink your eye and send that message again?" It's nothing to worry about but the Diagnostic utility counts this as an error.

Even with all these things factored in an error can happen for any number of other reasons. If all the basic installation rules have been followed (no loose terminals, burdens, number of units, length of cable, mains segregation, etc) then there still may occur an error due to someone running a welder nearby and generating lots of electrical noise, a bit of moisture on a PCB somewhere (we saw a unit destroyed by rat pee once), a stray alpha particle going through one of the RAM locations ... you get the idea.

One of the differences between a good system and a crappy system is that it works in the real world where nothing is perfect. Any bozo can make something work just on the bench. A lot of effort has been put into C-Bus to make it work in the real world.

 

Thanks Newman,

You are right, 0:02:03 to be exact.

I was wondering why I always get an error everytime I started the analyser. Now I know ....

I have a PAC and a Comfort to CBUS Interface (unit type INT_CIS).
The other errors occured at the hightest traffic peak, can this be attributed to a unit being busy as well?

 

It is most likely the PAC then that is introducing the extra error messages in the diagnostic utility report. It sounds like your network is just fine.

You can do a simple test - try running the analyser with the PAC disconnected from the network.

 

Now I am cranky... I have been working with C-Bus for 9 years. I have opened coultless boxes of equipment and not once have I found any jelly beans in there.

 

I did some testing today, and yes, with the PAC disconnected, there are no errors reported.

Thanks.