Performance and Behavior

On the UniInt page, use the settings in the Performance and Behavior pane on the right to configure interface performance and behavior options.

• Maximum stop time

  When a service is stopped, the Service Control Manager spawns a new thread for the exit handler. The exit handler sets the keep going flag for the interface to false and then waits a maximum of stop time seconds for the main thread to reach a safe exit point before the exit handler continues with its cleanup operations.

  By default, stop time is 120 seconds. If stop time seconds are exceeded, the exit handler will continue with its cleanup operations and then force the interface to exit.

  The command-line equivalent for setting this option is /maxstoptime=#.

  Click Reset to load the default Maximum stop time setting to the text box. Leave Maximum stop time blank to equal the default setting of 120 seconds.

  Entering a value of 0 causes the Maximum stop time to be exceeded, which forces the interface to immediately exit instead of waiting for UniInt to perform cleanup operations.

• Startup delay

  After UniInt prints out the Starting Interface startup message, UniInt waits for several delay seconds before proceeding. If the startup delay parameter is specified without specifying a delay time, then the default delay is 30 seconds.

  If an interface has been compiled to use the PI SDK, a delay time is needed before the interface connects to the PI SDK. If no delay is set, the interface may hang indefinitely when trying to connect to the PI SDK after a reboot has occurred.

  The command-line equivalent for setting this option is /startup_delay=#.

  Click Reset to load the default Startup Delay setting to the text box. Leave the Startup Delay value blank to equal the default setting of 30 seconds. If Startup Delay time is set to 0, no delay will occur.

• Point update interval

  Use Point update interval to adjust the interval with which UniInt checks for point updates. The default interval is 120 seconds, the minimum interval is 1 second, and the maximum interval is 300 seconds. See the section on point updates in the PI Universal Interface (UniInt) Framework user guide for more information.

  The command line equivalent for setting this option is /updateinterval=#.

  Click Reset to load the default point update interval setting to the field.

• Service events period

  The Service events period controls the Service Events TimeOut parameter, specified in milliseconds. Events are serviced (retrieved from the evmexceptions queue on PI Server) for 500 milliseconds, or until there are no more events in the queue. In either event, UniInt will perform the other tasks it is responsible for, such as scanning for input data and checking for PI point database changes.

  If the interface is servicing many events, the time might not be sufficient and can be adjusted with the Service events period start-up parameter. The minimum value is 0. If the Service Events TimeOut parameter is set to 0, UniInt will service 36 events at a time and then continue to perform its other tasks. The maximum value for x is 3000 (3 seconds).

  The command line equivalent for setting this option is /SvcEventsTO=#.

  Click Reset to load the default service events period setting.

• Percent Up

  Use Percent Up to adjust the percentage of devices that have a good status, which will determine the value for the devices status performance counter.

  The command line equivalent for setting this option is /PercentUp=#, Default: 100.

  Click Reset to load the default PercentUp setting.

• API Connection name

  The API connection name string controls the name sent to PI Server in order to establish the PI API trust. Prior to version 4.1 of UniInt, the interface name was used to establish the PI API trust with the PI Server, which limited the PI Administrator’s options when setting up security for an interface node. There was no way to configure different PI API trusts for different instances of the interface running on the same computer. The PI Administrator is now able to specify an application name for each instance by using the API connection name parameter.

  The maximum length of this parameter is determined by the version of the PI API that is installed on the interface node. If the PI API version is prior to 1.6, the maximum length is four characters. For PI API version 1.6 or greater, the maximum length is eight characters.

  Check the PIClient.ini file for the following settings to use eight characters for the appname parameter:

  [PISERVER]
  LONGPROCNAME=1

  Note: The PI API puts an E at the end of the app name when setting up the PI trust if you use the four-character appname.

  The command line equivalent for setting this option is /AppName=<Name>.

• Disable UniInt performance counters

  UniInt-based interfaces expose performance counters that provide information about the health of the interface. To disable this feature of UniInt interfaces, select the Disable UniInt performance counters check box.

  With UniInt 4.3.0.0 and later, UniInt will write this health information directly to points, rather than to the Performance Counter objects. These new points are referred to as UniInt Health Points.

  The command line equivalent for setting this option is /disablecounters.

• Include Point Source in the header of log messages

  When the Include Point Source in the header of log messages check box is selected, the point source for the interface will be included in the header of the log messages sent to the pipc.log file.

  The command line equivalent for setting this option is /logps.

• Include UFO_ID in log messages

  Use the Include UFO ID in log messages check box to tell UniInt to add the value of the /UFO_ID to all the failover log messages.

  The command-line equivalent for setting this option is /LogUFOID. Default: deselected for interfaces built on UniInt 4.4.5.4 and earlier. This command line parameter only applies to interfaces built on UniInt 4.4.5.4 and earlier. Later versions of UniInt always include the UFO ID in failover log messages.

• Trim Digital State Names

  Use the Trim Digital State Names check box to tell UniInt to trim leading spaces from digital state tags.

  The command-line equivalent for setting this option is /DigStateTrimLeft. Default: unchecked for interfaces built against UniInt 4.6.0.x and later. This check box is invisible for interfaces built against versions of UniInt earlier than 4.6.0.x.