How to use IONTEST to perform a Site Server ION program queue dump

Issue
Point of failures need to be eliminated when troubleshooting real-time-data issues. IONTest is a tool that allows for more in depth troubleshooting.

Product Line

Power Monitoring Expert 8.2

Power Monitoring Expert 9.0+

Power Monitoring Expert 2020

Power Monitoring Expert 2021

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​​​​​​​Power Monitoring Expert 2024

Environment
Test tools and utilities

Resolution
As of ION Enterprise 5.6 Sevice Pack 2, a SiteServ feature has been added where you can use the IONtest.exe utility program to dump its program queues to a text file for inspection during troubleshooting.

1. Run IONtest,from …<install path>…\system\bin folder and set your node to a device on the site you
want to dump queues for, e.g.

• IONtest.exe -mGroup1.Device1

2. Execute the following program: 0x77777777 21 "dump all"

Other possible values are:
"dump one" - dump oneshot queue only. LogInserter polling programs are oneshots by default.
"dump low" - dump low-frequency polled queue only. IONServices requests for real-time data are low-frequency polled by default.
"dump medium" - dump medium-frequency polled queue only
"dump high" - dump high-frequency polled queue only

IONtest will return an error, however it has successfully created the dump file so this can be ignored:

0x77777777 21 "dump all"
#Sent at: Tue Jan 26 11:40:01.125 2010

#Recv at: Tue Jan 26 11:40:02.562 2010
{
ExceptionType
{
9u
"dump all"
"Invalid object 0x77777777"
}
}

3. The dump files are created in the …<install path>\config\Diagnostics folder. They are named dump_<sitename>_<timestamp>.txt.

The dump files are human-readable: this dump shows all empty polled queues, and 2 oneshots in the queue from Vista to a BCPM and PM810.
(In this example, the prog bytes are truncated for readability. In a real dump file, they will continue for several lines.)

• highs (pid,src,dest,...):
  mediums (pid,src,dest,...):
  lows (pid,src,dest,...):
  oneshots (pid,src,dest,...):
  oneshots (pid,src,dest,...):
  oneshots (pid,src,dest,...):
  oneshots (pid,src,dest,...):
  oneshots (pid,src,dest,...):
  (2d,VISTA.IONE-SERVER,BCPM.BCPM_1,4)
  SOURCE: 8.1.1 DESTINATION: 1.1.0
  MESSAGE ID: 0 DESCRIPTION: request NoPasswd NakableSession ID: 1264534664
  ***** Poll Message:
  Node: 1.1.0 freq: 01 priority: 00 service: 00 type: 00
  PID: 45 FREQ: 1 PRIORITY: 4 ACTIONS: request| create execute destroy
  prog: f6 ff ff 08 60 1b 01 01 ff ff 08 60 1b 01 02 ff ff 08 60 1b 01 03 ff ff ... ...
  *****
  
  (2e,VISTA.IONE-CLIENT,PM.PM810_1,4)
  SOURCE: 8.1.1 DESTINATION: 1.1.0
  MESSAGE ID: 0 DESCRIPTION: request NoPasswd NakableSession ID: 1264534664
  ***** Poll Message:
  Node: 1.1.0 freq: 01 priority: 00 service: 00 type: 00
  PID: 46 FREQ: 1 PRIORITY: 4 ACTIONS: request| create execute destroy
  prog: f6 ff ff 08 60 0b 01 01 ff ff 08 60 0b 01 02 ff ff 08 60 0b 01 03 ff ff... ...
  *****
  
  oneshots (pid,src,dest,...):
  controls (pid,src,dest,...):