Known Issues and Limitations in GENESIS Version 11

This topic describes known issues and limitations in the version 11 release.

Security

  • The OPC Classic service is disabled by default for security reasons. We recommend only using this component in isolated environments, or using the more modern and secure OPC UA protocol wherever possible.
  • When setting up network communications between GENESIS components using Integrated Windows authentication, the Kerberos identity of the server modules is always assumed to be an SPN in the form HTTP/<hostname>. This might cause a problem if the GENESIS server components are configured to run under an account other than Network Service.
  • To maintain the security (confidentiality, integrity, and availability) of GENESIS against unauthorized access, denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, computer viruses, and other cyberattacks from external devices via the network, take appropriate measures such as firewalls, virtual private networks (VPNs), and antivirus solutions.

  • For information about security vulnerabilities, refer to iconics.com/cert.

Installation

  • The new installation does not support removing version 10 installations (currently in Early Access). Version 10 installations need to be uninstalled manually.
  • The Migration tool from version 10 is not integrated into the installation in version 11. To upgrade to version 11, you will need to download the new Compatibility Analyzer utility separately and run it manually before installing GENESIS.
  • We have tightened operating system requirements because some components, such as GraphWorX, require the latest operating system. All other components inherit that requirement in version 10 installations and allow operating system version requirement customization for advanced cases.
  • MobileHMI/HTML5 and WebAPI components are not supported on the Windows 10 MSIX packaging environment operating system which is available in the Hyper-V server Quick Create option.
  • Some installation components (such as the Configure System Utility, Utilities, and FrameWorX), while available for selection, also serve as required prerequisites for other components, and are always installed when their dependent components are selected for installation.
  • If you click the Upgrade button without explicitly selecting a workload and/or components (on the Advanced tab) when performing an upgrade from a previous version 11 setup, the installation will upgrade the already installed setup.
  • When you uninstall GENESIS, Microsoft PowerShell 7-x64, an optional prerequisite, is also uninstalled.
  • When run in silent mode, the installation does not validate command-line parameters. Misspelled parameters may result in unexpected outcomes, such as initiating the GENESIS full installation setup.

Workbench

  • There is a validation issue for Name/Unit fields on Temperature sources in an Asset configuration. 
  • You cannot use Asset Builder for MELSEC devices—it has been removed. 
  • In an OPC UA configuration, all certificates are available, but only certificates with a private key should be used (via the file system). 
  • When upgrading a Workbench setup database that is very large, we strongly recommend that you disable Execute the upgrade in a transaction and enable Backup the database before the upgrade instead.

GraphWorX

  • There are styling issues in the grid controls (Table, Fault Viewer, Asset Navigator).
  • The initial setup of Azure Active Directory Security may break the ability to load GraphWorX64 displays in HTML5. To fix this, add a default group and allow all files. 

  • If you receive the following error, it means that the HTML5 display could not be loaded.

    HTTP Error 500.19 - Internal Server Error

    To fix the issue, try reinstalling dotnet-hosting-8.0.x-win.exe where x is the installed or latest version.

  • (HTML5 3D) Referenced textures and terrain elevation bitmaps do not work when a path contains spaces.

HTML5 3D Gap Items

The following is a list of gap items. Although the following items are supported on the Desktop, they currently aren't supported in HTML5 3D.

Lights

  • Point light
    • Constant/quadratic attenuation
  • Spotlight
    • Constant/quadratic attenuation

Materials

  • Back material
  • Primitives mapping options
  • Diffuse/specular global color
  • Diffuse gradient

Dynamics

  • Color
    • On specular component of materials, it differs when no start or end color is used. In this case, the specular material component is set to the same value as the diffuse.

Annotations

  • Opacity
  • Angle property
  • Line thickness

Miscellaneous

  • There can be only one 3D viewer in the entire display.

HTML 3D Unsupported Features

The following items are unsupported due to limitations of HTML5 3D.

Lights

  • The ambient light might not have the same effect on the resulting look as in GraphWorX.
  • Even when using only the supported light features, the overall look of the lighting might not be the same as in GraphWorX.

Materials

  • Specular image
  • Specular gradient
  • Ambient color
  • Emissive/specular might have a different effect than in GraphWorX.
  • Even when using only the supported material features, the overall look of the material might not be exactly the same as in GraphWorX.

Dynamics

  • If the PointFailText is one character, the point fail text inside 3D annotations will only write this one character as opposed to the desktop, where the character repeats a certain number of times.

Annotations

  • The desktop mode type annotations allow putting anything inside them, including free positioning.

Miscellaneous

  • The 3D Viewer is always on top of other objects and its z-order cannot be changed.

Alarm Historian

  • Alarm Historian isn't logging in the correct location when switching between Workbench projects.

    This behavior is by design. The .almi index files have names based on the logger name to make the name more human-readable. This is different from Hyper Historian, where the names are based on the GUID. If you have multiple projects, you should use a unique name for each logger.

    If you need to have loggers with the same name in different projects, then you should specify different locations for storing the index files. You can specify different locations by going to Alarm Historian > Product Configuration > System Settings > Data Processing > Storage Index File Directory.

    By default, index files are saved to Program Data\ICONICS\11\AlarmHistorian.

OPC Classic

  • Remote OPC Classic—Remote connections were possible in previous versions using a stand-alone installation of GenBroker that bridged the communication. However, GenBroker has been removed, and we are planning a replacement in the version 11.0 release, but it is currently unavailable in the Early Access release.

    For now, people should use the full GENESIS installation to bridge communication, if needed.

  • We have observed that the Kepware Server does not provide alarms and historical data without a proper license. This behavior is likely due to the absence of a valid license, as we observed the same behavior with other clients while other servers behaved correctly.

  • FwxGenClientService is running under LocalSystem

    This service running under the Local System could be viewed as a potential security risk as it runs on the highest permissions. Customers running secure systems and not using OPC Classic can disable this service.

  • OPC Classic XML DA is no longer supported.

OPC UA

  • Point names without the ua: prefix are no longer supported.
  • Writing values of complex data types does not work with some servers.
  • Trend Viewer cannot obtain the list of available historical aggregates from the server; it displays a static list.

FrameWorX

  • All computers in the cluster (default cluster for thick clients) need to use the identical configuration database, in particular cluster and security configuration.
  • Performance counter names are always in English.

  • When setting up Integrated Windows Authentication, both the SPN service class and the UPN settings are ignored. This is a limitation of .NET 8 and is currently unsupported. See the following issues reported on Microsoft's github:

    https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/issues/25320
    https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/issues/107733

GenBroker

  • In GENESIS version 11, GenBroker is now obsolete. Thus, the tag @sim64:\\Vm39vv\ShortRandom(Period[sec],Min,Max,Phase[deg]) value will not work The only way to get data from remote machines is to use the tag with the FrameWorX connection \\Vm39vv\@sim64:\ShortRandom(Period[sec],Min,Max,Phase[deg]) value.

Unified Data Manager (UDM)

  • Due to changes in services, UDM should now always run as Out-of-Process.

BACnet

  • There is no utility to migrate old data in version 10 to the new .hhd file format in version 11.

Internet of Things (IoT)

  • The IoT Subscriber does not communicate through the Proxy. This is caused by an upgrade of the NuGet packages, which must be fixed by Microsoft.
  • There is no utility to migrate old data logged in IoT Publisher version 10 to the new .hhd file format in version 11.

Global Search

  • Migrate SQLite files of Global Search.
  • Cannot search the full address space when using Global Search.
  • The Global Search configuration dialog does not contain all modules.
  • Some root nodes do not provide a context into the Global Search service.

Alert Notifications (formerly AlertWorX)

  • The account that Alert Sierra runs under has changed to Network_Service. This may require the site to update firewall input or output rules.
  • When running Gmail OAuth support, you must run GmailSample.exe under expanded administrator permissions.

Connected Field Service

  • CFSWorX™ has been renamed to Connected Field Service.
  • Connected Field Service alarm triggers occur on alarms having a new alarm time. By default, the version 11 Alarm Server only updates the alarm time when the alarm is acknowledged and returns to normal. However, the version 11 Alarm Server also offers an option to change this behavior.

Redundancy

Security Context Synchronization

  • When there is a failover of the HTML5 client, even clients not connected to the failing node will refresh.
  • We have seen that failover in certain cases takes longer and points are invalid in that time.

Data Historian (formerly Hyper Historian Express)

  • The SQL Query Engine (OLE DB provider) has been removed in version 11.
  • The OPC DA/HDA client interface has been removed.
  • The OPC UA client interface has been removed.