WorkVisual cannot detect KRC, and some other weird networking stuff

Hello,

History is here, and the actual state is from the bold paragraph:

I have in front of me a KUKA KR 180 R2500 Extra robot with KRC 4 8.3.13 software. I am working with WorkVisual 6.0.

This robot came to us as an accessory to a big machine that our parent company has used in Germany, but we could not make the space for the robots by the machine, so we want to make a new purpose for the robots. (We've got 2 almost identical robots, but I've only starte to use the first, because I do not want to mess up two at the same time.

Firtsly, I was able to open and save the project that was originally used in Germany from the robot. I also have managed to restore the robot from it the teach pendant, by pressing the left side WorkVisual icon and then in the menu that opens slowly I selected the option that is called Shipment State in my main language, basically it means that it is a factory reset. Initial Setup or something. Sorry for not being accurate with this, but I guess you know what I mean.

So after doing it, I was able to finally move the robot and make a new basic program that is just a loop between two positions, and it worked great in T1.

The issue was, you see, that these robots were quite badly removed from Germany, basically they cut ALL of the wires that goes into the controller, except the axes motor and encoder cables, plus these robots have EtherCAT inside and then converted to PROFIBUS, neither of which can we work with. Nevertheless, I managed to make the robot work with this factory reset project activation.

After that, I wanted to upload it to WoV, but WoV did not find the robot at the IP adress I have already used before. Thinking that maybe the Initial Setup (or idk what it's real English name is) set the IP address to something else, I went into "Commissioning" (again, might be an inaccurate name), Network Configuration, and then set the address to 192.168.1.70 which I've used before, and also maybe the mask to 255.255.255.0.

That's where the problems started. I could not connect to the robot at all, I had to go to IT to get a DVI cable (which was already pointed out in some other threads by panic mode and SkyeFire and thankfully I've managed to get back to connecting the TP to the controller.

(I have set the Virtual Network Controller to 192.168.0.1, 255.255.255.0, 192.168.0.2 as IP/mask/GW under Windows Control Panel)

Now the TP was working, and the robot was having it's IP settings up as the above plus in the Commissioning->NetworkConfig there was the 192.168.1.70, I was able to ping the robot from my laptop, but WoV still did not see it, telling me that there is nothing by that adress to connect to. I have already plugged the laptop directly into the KLI interface, as both of the above mentioned helpers have pionted out in other threads before.

This is where I am at.

I have made a cold start to the system (and this happens either by selecting or deselecting the "reloading of all files" option), and now the TP would not connect at all, getting stuck at "Waiting for cyclic connection....". I then checked the network adapter settings again in the Control Panel, and I can see that the Gateway field became empty. I refill it with 192.168.0.2, and the TP connects almost instantly. But after another restart, the Gateway field becomes empty again.
I have also tried to input 192.168.1.70 into the virtual network adapter, and it has said to me that this IP address is already in use in the "Advanced..." tab of the adapter IPv4 settings. I spent some time figuring this out because of a graphical glitch, but there were 3 IP adresses there: 192.168.0.1, 192.168.1.70, and something 172..... I checked the other robot and ther e was only the 192.168.0.1 there, and the 192.168.0.2 at the bottom field as a gateway.


So now I am at a state where I have deleted the 192.168.1.70 from the Advanced... tab's IP adresses field, and now I cannot ping the robot anymore.
WoV still does not see the robot, and also the GW field becomes empty at every restart.

I hope that you can help me with this issue, as it is kinda infuriating that on time WoV works, but movement does not, and once movement is solved, WoV does not work anymore, also because of the GW field going empty, TP does not connect automatically at startup.

I hope that I have given every info that will be needed, but if not, ask freely, I will appreciate any helping motivated comments to this problem.

Best regards to anyone reading this.

Well, now the TeachPendant cannot connect at all. I've made a new network interface in the HMI Network Configuration menu with the 192.168.1.70 IP and it did NOT show in the Control Panel of Windows after reboot, however, thes has caused the HMI to never again connect. I've tried deleting the virtal network's driver and then reinstalling it but did not succeed.

Well, since I did not recieve any replies somehow (wondering if I did something wrong while creating the post), I did not give up on trying again and again.

What solved the issue immediately was the following:

• Firstly, I knew that something was up with the KRC PC's Windows, because of it always forgetting the default gateway for the virtual network, so I decided to take a move on it, maybe it will help with something else, considering it was only a mild inconvinience compared to the KRC software not loading at all. So I've googled on this issue for basic windows 7.
• Then it was said that in CMD Admin Mode I need to issue the following command:

  netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt

  Then do a reboot. This has basically reset every TCP/IP setting on the entire windows installation, I believe.

• Then do a reboot. This has basically reset every TCP/IP setting on the entire windows installation, I believe.

• After that I've set up the correct IP addresses in the adapter settings in control panel in windows. This time, all of the address fields were completely empty, however they finally stuck to their setups.

• After that, the HMI/TeachPendant immediately reconnected to the KRC PC and everything started to work finally! Except the laptop still did not see the KRC PC.

So, now I went into the KRC HMI menu on the TP, and set the network interfaces back to original state. The laptop still did not see it. I had an idea then. I do an ARP request from the laptop to check if there was anything else. There was not. I tried multiple times unplugging and replugging the short Ethernet cable that was plugged to the laptop and the KLI socket, and have done multiple ARP requests each time. Finally, I've managed to get the laptop to see the robot at it's set IP adress of 192.168.1.70. I've issued a ping, which worked fine.

Okay, let's move to WoV. It also recognized the robots, so I was like: Finally, let's upload from the robot to the PC our project.

And that's when the fun part comes. On the Open project tab, WoV showed the first and second level of the controller, but not the actual projects available on it, because comms failed. Oh well. Unplug, replug. Nothing. And then it works. And then it doesn't...

So maybe, just maybe, it has all been made much worse for me by a bad f*ck!n' Ethernet cable!

Guys, if anyone reads this, do NOT be so stupid like me and not try multiple cables before doing ANYTHING if your settings seem to be normal!
Of course, Window's own TCP/IP settings still collapsed when I set up my IP address of choice, and that was only solved almost a week of trying later....

Quote from SkyeFire

NEVER.

EVER.

EVER.

Modify the Network settings of a KRC in the WINDOWS settings. This can completely wreck the KRC. I'm frankly amazed you were able to recover without getting a full system reload from KUKA.

Yeah, you've actually said it a few times in the forum. THe issue was that when I set the preferred IP address in the KRCs own UI in the Startup(?) menu in Network configuration, the settings in Windows has gone all wrong by themselves. That is why is was needed to do stuff in Windows in the first place.

I hope you can see this picture below. This is where I set the IP address to 192.168.1.70 and then after next reboot, the entire system's networking crashed.

Quote from panic mode

Thus is mentioned numerous times including READ FIRST

* always make suitable backups, the ultimate backup is HDD image

* do not mess with network setting unless you know what you are doing. Check documentation. There are reserved address ranges. Do NOT assign address that falls into those ranges. This includes 192.168.0.X

I... actually do not know what was wrong of the things I did. I assume, that from where I've shot the picture it is totally okay to assign IP address, and I did NOT input 192.168.0.x address in that field ever, only the 192.168.1.70. The picture was actually taken from the brother robot of the one that has almost been wrecked in it's software.

192.168.1.x is the subnet that the entire work-in-progress cell is configured in, and to avoid issues, my laptop is locked on an IP in that range, but I cannot change it, because of some stupid company IT rules not letting anyone have Admin rights on their laptop, so every driver, software or configuration case has to be made personally by an IT member. That is why I wanted to use this robot in the same network address range, even though it will not be a part of the current cell, only for the next project and next cell.

Quote

this is an extremally lengthy post that take time to read... not to mention to respond to...

I was trying to be thorough, but I guess from the 20% score, I was not good enough. Meh, maybe next time

Quote from panic mode

what you have used before is irrelevant. in fact most computers have several network adapters (WiFi, wired LAN, VM etc.). ping will get you response as long as ANY interface can reach it. but WoV is not too aggressive trying to reach the robots. and WoV seem to pick first one, scan it and that is what it reports. to force it to scan correct subnet, you need to manually enter IP address of the robot (After you looked it up on the smartPad or in the archive).

That is what I meant there. I always put in the IP of the robot, never let WoV automatically detect the robot.

Quote from panic mode

that is normal too. network settings are not applied immediately. they take effect AFTER reboot.

I meant that after a reboot, of course. The KRC UI tells me every time that changes only take effect on reboot. I could not connect after a reboot.

Quote from panic mode

what do you mean by "virtual network controller"?

and what do you mean by you set it to 192.168.0.x address when in the post #7 you say exactly the opposite:

The "virtual network controller" that you see in the Windows->Control Panel->Network->Adapter settings. The one that you should never tamper with. Its settings got messed up after I have set up the 192.168.1.70 address in the KRC UI, a Windows bug, I assume. The opposite you are referring to is meant for the KRC UI network config address field. Of course, KRC software does not let you use it as it is conflicting with its own internal networking, so I could not use it even if I wanted to.

Quote from panic mode

well.. what did you expect?

That the stupid Windows won't bug out on me, for example. Why would the KRC UI network config tab mess up the Windows Adapter settings? It has never done that to me before and have not done this to me ever since.

Quote from panic mode

as said, WoV is not great at sensing nearby robots. you need to use magnifier and enter address manually.

gateway is normally always empty (0.0.0.0) because it is irrelevant when confection is local. this begs question - are you on a local network with the robot?

as said, I always give WoV the exact address of the robot. WHen I referred to the gateway field, I meant the windows adapter settings tab, not the KRC UI's gateway field. So there was nothing wrong on my part. And of course, yes, I'm on a local network, 192.168.1.x and the laptop and robot are directly connected. (Well, since the issue was solved on Tuesday, I've already connected the robot to a PLC and got ProfiNET to work, too. )

Quote from panic mode

details on how your computer network interface

I have also mentioned those. Laptop is 192.168.1.12 fixed IP, 255.255.255.0 mask fixed.

Quote from panic mode

well, not exactly.

Maybe I've given more than you've recognised for the first read, but either way, the issue was solved.

I am quite sure that I have done nothing wrong, simply Windows bugged out when I set the robot's IP address in the KRC UI to 192.168.1.70, and I needed to issue the CMD command "netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt", re-input the Windows Adapter settings IP addresses and everything got back to normal.

I think the thread can be marked as resolved now