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

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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
ION Enterprise
Struxureware Power Monitoring (SPM)
Power Monitoring Expert (PME)

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,...):

One thing to keep in mind is that this produces a snapshot of what's in the queue at the time of execution. If Diagnostics Viewer is showing 0 programs in the queues then you're unlikely to see anything (i.e. SiteServ processing is keeping up with the requests).