Appendix B - Troubleshooting

ezCart 2001 should be trouble-free, but there are some areas where problems could occur. Typically, these problems are related to initial setup and use of ezCart 2001. In general, problems encountered will fall into four areas - 1) serial communication with the DCS or Maestro unit (if applicable); 2) TCP/IP communications problems (if applicable); 3) locating and loading inventory files; and 4) bugs in ezCart 2001 and/or application errors related to running ezCart 2001 on a particular PC.

Serial Communications Problems

By far, the largest number of difficulties fall into this area. In order to make finding the problem as simple as possible, ezCart 2001 includes a built-in debugging tool, known as a terminal component. It is accessible from the Help | TroubleShooting | Display Serial Data menu on the main application display.

The terminal component, when enabled, displays as a popup dialog and provides functionality similar to the Windows Terminal program or Windows 95, Windows 98, Me, NT, and Windows 2000's HyperTerminal program. It would be normally used as a tool to view serial communications. If you're seeing data, the communications link is working - if not, then you need to investigate why. You can also manually enter commands in the terminal component, using the documented DCS External Interface Specification.

Serial Trouble Shooting Steps:

1.	Check to be sure that you have a working cable connected between the ezCart 2001 machine and the DCS or Maestro unit. This cable must be configured as a "null-modem" cable. See the section on serial interface for details on wiring pin-outs for the serial cable.

Ensure that you have selected a valid, working serial port on the PC on which ezCart 2001 is running. There should be no other devices using the same port. A common example would be an internal modem using the same port number as a serial port that appears on the exterior of the PC, but is not enabled. You may also have inadvertently chosen the modem port instead of the available serial port on two port machines. Use the [Select COM Port] button in the ezCart 2001 configuration display to select a port. This dialog interrogates the PC and returns only valid ports.

3.	Ensure that the serial port you've selected on the DCS or Maestro unit is a valid, working port.

4.	Check the DCS or Maestro machine configuration to be sure you've set up the machine properly for serial communications. See the section on Setting Up DCS or Setting Up Maestro 3 for more information, or consult your system manual.

5.	If you have performed all of the above steps and communications are still not happening, it's time to experiment. Perform these steps one at a time, then test, then the next, etc., to isolate the problem.

a)	Try changing which serial port is used, if possible, on the PC that's running ezCart 2001.

b)	Try changing which serial port is used on the DCS machine.

c)	Try to locate a known-to-be working serial cable configured as a null modem cable and substitute it for the cable you have been using.

TCP/IP Communications Problems

Most often, TCP/IP communications problems will occur if you don't have the host and client applications using the same ports, TCP/IP is not installed on either the rcServer machine or the ezCart 2001 machine, or the port(s) selected for ezCart 2001 are already in use by another application. If you are connecting remotely, it may be that the ports you are trying to use are blocked by a firewall.

Debugging Tools

ezCart 2001 includes a built-in debugging tool, known as a terminal component. It is accessible from the Help | TroubleShooting | Display Serial Data menu on the main application display.

The terminal component, when enabled, displays as a popup dialog and provides functionality similar to the Windows Terminal program or Windows 95, Windows 98, Me, NT, and Windows 2000's HyperTerminal program. It would be normally used as a tool to view serial communications data sent to ezCart 2001 via the rcServer. If you're seeing data, the communications link is working - if not, then you need to investigate why.

Another tool available is the TCP/IP Status Dialog, which provides information on data communications between ezCart 2001 and the host rcServer. Status information on file transfer requests and results of the transfer are examples of information available in this dialog. TCP/IP communications problems - disconnects or other sorts of problems - are also available in the dialog.

C.	Event Logs are available for both text communications (commands, instant messaging, etc.) and File Transfer. You can view these logs from the Help \| Trouble Shooting menu. See the section on Viewing Event Logs for more information.

Ports must be the same on both ezCart 2001 and rcServer

You must use the same port number for both ends of the TCP/IP communication. For example, if rcServer's file transfer port is 6000, then ezCart 2001 must be configured for port 6000 or communications will fail. The same applies to the text & command service. Be careful not to reverse port numbers - i.e. inadvertently assigning the file transfer port to the text and command port or vice versa.

TCP/IP is not installed or wrong version

TCP/IP networking must be installed on both the ezCart 2001 machine and the rcServer machine. Further, the TCP/IP networking version number should be version 2 or above. Consult your operating system documentation for assistance in assuring that you have TCP/IP installed correctly and working.

A selected TCP/IP port is already in use

If you configure ezCart 2001 to use a port that is already in use by another application, communications will fail. ezCart 2001 provides a fairly wide range of port numbers to choose from - you may use port numbers 5300 through 6999.

The port numbers for the text & command service (Listen Port) and file transfer service must be different.

Problems Loading Inventory Files

If ezCart 2001 can not find an inventory file, an error message will be displayed. The cause of the problem is that ezCart 2001 did not find the file where you indicated it was in your user configuration, that you selected the wrong node to configure, or that you have mapped directory locations using UNC conventions and there's a problem with the UNC address.

To prevent erroneous directory locations, use the directory picker button in the ezCart 2001 preferences form to select the directory from a list of available drives and directories. If you can't see the directory you want, either you do not have rights to access the directory, or you're not logged into the server that has the directory location you want.

Be sure that you're selecting the correct node in the ezCart 2001 configuration area. It should match the node number assigned in the DCS configuration file for a given work station. If the node number assigned in DCS is 3, then you should configure node 3 in the ezCart 2001 preferences display.

ezCart 2001 will work with UNC directory names, but may fail to find the file if you've not logged in to the server on which the file is located. ezCart 2001 will not automatically log you in. It is recommended that you use mapped drives for your connections to inventory files when using ezCart 2001.

Application Bugs or Errors

Bugs and errors generally fall into one of two categories - a bug, which is the application not doing something as you might have predicted it would, or; an error, which is the failure of the application to run or perform a specific task altogether.

If you find a bug, report it. Every effort is made to ensure ezCart 2001 performs as expected, but there may be circumstances that were not predicted in the development of the software.

If you encounter an error, you will get an error message indicating a severe failure and ezCart 2001 may terminate. Provisions are made to "catch" such errors and log the error information to a file in the ezCart 2001 application directory named cr2001Except.Log. This log can be viewed from within ezCart 2001 by selecting Help | Trouble Shooting | Application Error Log from the main menu display. See the section on Viewing Event Logs for more information. Again, report any application errors you encounter. You may be asked to send the appropriate log file for analysis.

You may also be asked to enable the ezCart 2001 "debug mode", which adds additional trouble shooting capabilities. When debug mode is enabled, you can display the debugging information by selecting the menu item Help | Trouble Shooting | Display Debug Window. For more information, see the sections Debug Window and Appendix E - Command-Line Switches.