how to troubleshoot OPC DA the right way?

Hi
I wonder how you would go about troubleshooting OPC DA comms between 2 computers on the same network (obviously 1 being server and the other client). The only thing know is that the ping is working between both PCs. What is the best path and the least amount of steps ? i have a feeling it should take 30min instead of several hours which does sometimes happens. Apart from that there are several questions related to the main question of the ideal troubleshooting steps:
1 I thought OPC enum absolutely necessary for OPC DA to work or its possible to work even without that?
2 What are preferred OPC DA clients to start connections - i have a feeling that kepware is good but rockwell RSI even better (tiny program which has only the basics needed )
3 DCOM setting is the main issue to get it right but is there any way or tool to make sure that they were done right (other than connection working)
4 Are there any tools helping in the troubleshooting steps of OPC DA - somebody mentioned matricon tool?
5 Is reading opcfundation docs the best way to learn the theory ?

Regards
 
Hi David,

Most of the vendors provide their OPC test clients, that will be a good starting point.
Issue starts with Port number mismatch, User access, different domain vs work group etc.,
By the way, the DCOM settings will soon go away as per Microsoft.
Few OEMs has switched to 3rd part Tunneller to mitigate this.
Hope this helps.
 
regarding port mismatch- any chance you expand on that? i thought port 135 was initially used by opc.enum to select working port from the huge range of ports- is that right? so maybe range of ports can be different? also dcom settings for launching user - looks like its much more robust if opc da server can run as a service and launch by system - this is much preferred than running as program as other launching modes
 
Top