We have Centum CS3000 DCS (R 3.07.00) installed on our plant. Recently, I prepared a new Engineering Workstation (HIS with builder functions) as the previous one had developed problems.

The new EWS is working fine except that the Electronic Instruction Manuals are not accessible.

During installation, I chose to keep the EIM files on disk. I also installed Adobe Reader 7.0 from Centum CS3000 setup CD and also installed the StoryView app from the setup CD required for documentation.

When I access the manuals, StoryView app quits with the message "Failed to create empty document".

I understand that this is a rather common error in Centum CS3000 installation and has something to do with the connectivity between Adobe Reader and StoryView.

Note that on the EWS PC, some "Adobe Reader DC" was installed on Windows XP initially. I uninstalled the previous version and proceeded to installed the Adobe Reader 7.0 from setup CD. I think the two versions are messed up causing this problem.

Any suggestions to fix this problem?

Note: This thread is in continuation of my previous post.
http://control.com/thread/1453102072

 

Hi Mudassir,

I am unclear of when you uninstalled the preconfigured Adobe Reader DC. Did you uninstall the DC version, prior to an initial installation of Adobe Reader 7? Did you have both versions present, prior to uninstalling DC?

Try the following to see if it helps with troubleshooting and resolving and refer to the CS3000 Installation Manual for details.

Multiple PDF applications can be a cause of problems, including residual effects during installations and de-installations.

At the moment, I suspect the main problem is there is no working PDF software. Try opening a pdf, such as the DocMap from C:\CS3000\<folder beginning with IM>\DOCMAP.pdf

If necessary, uninstall all pdf software, then install the required pdf software, then Finder.

After running up the Adobe software (with or without a pdf), initially you will need to accept the Adobe license agreement.

Refer to the CS3000 Installation Manual for required Adobe settings. [These setting are required for each Windows user. At least do for CENTUM]

After you get the Adobe Reader 7 software ready and configured, try again with the StoryVIEW software. Such as the Document Map accessed from the Windows start menus.
Reinstall Finder.
Try using StoryVIEW again (such as the Document Map).

If the software conflicts are stubborn, do a clean install of a Windows operating system that does _not_ contain pre-installed bloatware. Before formatting, backup any necessary data.

As an interim partial workaround, the CS3000 manuals can be viewed by directly accessing the PDF documents, such as the docmap. [If necessary, using another machine to view them with whatever PDF software that other machine has.] For full functionality and ease of access (to these and other documents), resolve the main Adobe and StoryVIEW issues.

Good luck.

Kind regards,
Flash

 

Dear Flash,

I uninstalled Adobe Reader DC _before_ installing Adobe Reader 7 and Finder.exe. As per installation procedure, this is ok. However, it didn't work for me.

When I tried to run Adobe Reader standalone, or launch a pdf from Windows Explorer, I discovered that Adobe Reader 7 wasn't working at all. Launching a pdf or running Adobe Reader 7 caused the relevant explorer window to freeze and I had to kill the explorer.exe or get rid of the frozen window.

I tried uninstalling/reinstalling Adobe Reader/Finder a couple of times but the result was some. Adobe Reader 7 wasn't working at all, with or without Finder.

Then I installed Acrobat Reader 5 which is also provided on Yokogawa setup CD. Fortunately, it worked standalone, but still not working with StoryView. But now at least I am able to view documents directly. "Builder Definition Items" is not working as it requires StoryView, which is still giving the same error, "Failed to create empty document".

I checked the Acrobat Reader settings (open in web browser and use certified plugin only) and they are correct. One thing I noticed is that although the "Open in Web Browser" setting is enabled, opening a pdf directly in Internet Explorer launches Acrobat Reader separately.

I fiddled with the settings many times, but wasn't able to get the pdf open inside IE. This is contrary to the behavior of my old EWS. When I type a pdf path in IE there, it opens right inside the browser. And this is perhaps required by StoryView to work.

Doing a clean install of EWS including Windows setup makes me feel sick to the stomach. Particularly scared about the database mismatch error. http://control.com/thread/1307258564

I will try it further in a virtual PC on my computer. Testing these things in a production environment is difficult. Will get back here if I found a workaround.

 

Hi Mudassir,

Thanks for the update.

That's great if you can experiment on a temporary development system, if need be.

Important: You will find it so much easier to do a clean install with the original supported operating systems and programs. Prior to investigating upgrades. If seeking to experiment with Microsoft updates, it is best to contact Yokogawa to find out what updates were tested by them; and then do your own testing.

In this instance, I strongly suspect the Internet Explorer software is conflicting. What Internet Explorer version is on the HIS0145 problem computer? What Internet Explorer version is on the computer with the computer with the functioning StoryVIEW?

Both those computers running XP SP3, though from different OEM suppliers or pre-configurations?

Whilst I strongly suspect the Internet Explorer conflict to be the primary issue; you will also still need to get the Adobe Reader working in the Internet Explorer windows. Try deselecting and reselecting the option within Adobe Reader.

At the moment it is likely you will be able to recover the functionality, without reinstalling windows.

Kind regards,
Flash

 

Dear Flash,

You were quite right about IE. I had IE7 preinstalled in Win XP SP3. Win XP SP2 which is recommended by Yokogawa for R3.07 has IE6 by default.

I also had contacted Yokogawa RCA regarding this problem. After detailed working, they were able to reproduce this problem at their end. IE7 causes conflicts with Adobe / Acrobat and StoryView.

They advised me to uninstall it.

When I proceeded to do so, the IE7 uninstaller warned me that a number of programs will be affected or may not work properly after uninstalling IE7. There were a total of 34 affected programs, many of them were critical in nature.

Therefore, I chose to keep IE7 for now. I am afraid a botched removal of IE7 may leave the system in more unstable state. Perhaps a clean install of Windows would be a better choice after all.

At least now I know what went wrong.

Thanks for your support and advice.
Mudassir