Factory Talk Services Error

Have you ever tried to restore a Rockwell Factory Talk View ME Panelview app and gotten the very frustrating error shown below which tells you that you are missing an impossible to install version of Factory Talk Services Platform?  You check your version of Factory Talk Services Platform and see that you have the latest version of Factory Talk Services (6.11.0.0 – as of this writing – August 2020).

Next you scream in anger at Rockwell and go on a rant about RSLinx and how much that should be improved. Then you go off the rails and rant about how Rockwell has not done any decent development on FTViewME in recent years, particularly development on integrating Excel more closely with the FTViewME tag database.  When you are done with your rant, you realize that you still have this same error and don’t know what to do about it.

Factory Talk Services Error

First here is the system info:

  • OS: Win10 Pro 64 bit
  • Factory Talk View ME – 10.0 and then 11.0
  • FactoryTalk Services Platform v6.11.00 – when I started dealing with the issue.
  • Other Rockwell programs installed include Logix5, Logix500, RSLogix 19.01 and 20.04 and Studio 5000 v24.01, v28.03 & v32.02

I had the very frustrating error shown above when trying to restore a Factory Talk View ME v10.0 app to do some work for a customer.  It wasn’t the first time that I have had an issue with Rockwell’s hidden update they make through FTView patches.  Here is how it went…

First, I thought that maybe I could update Factory Talk Services Platform (FTSP) to that particular version. I searched the Rockwell Automation Knowledge Base site and found that you can actually download different versions of Factory Talk Services Platform as stand alone installs. I thought great! Maybe this is what I need. However, the version numbers stop at 6.11.0. That made me think that I had the latest version.  I tried the install anyway in case they didn’t include the last set of update numbers (the .12).  Nope.  That didn’t work.

Next, I thought that maybe updating to FactoryTalk View ME v11 would update the Factory Talk Services Platform with all the relevant patches since it is a newer version of ME.  I installed v11 but the same error popped up.  No bueno.

I finally decided that maybe I had not installed the roll up patches to date, so I went to Knowledge Base again and found all the patch roll ups for this year.  It turns out that May 2020 is the one that patches FTSP to version 6.11.0.12.  Once I ran that, I was able to restore the app and open it. I went ahead and did the July 31, 2020 patch roll up as well.  Everything looks good now.

I just wanted to publicize this issue so that maybe others will see this post and not spend an entire day installing software, rebooting, downloading stuff and then getting the same error over and over again.  – Erik