Can you host a Creo Parametric 4.0 installation on a virtual server and have it connect to a Windchill installation hosted on a separate virtual server?

[kkillian]

Hi all, I have a bit of a quandary.

For a brief moment, I was able to host an installation of Creo Parametric on a virtual server, open Creo on my workstation, and connect it to another separate server that was hosting Windchill. Now when I launch Creo Parametric and click on the server manager, Creo throws an error: "The server is not supported." Does anyone have any experience with an issue like this?

[TomU]

Assuming the versions of Creo and Windchill are compatible, I would suggest removing your local cache and then using the environment variable PTC_WF_ROOT to control where this cache is being created. 

[kkillian]

I am running the latest versions of both Windchill and Creo Parametric.

Okay, so this cleared all of the servers in the server manager.

After running a script setting this variable to a temp folder on my C:\ drive, I attempted to register my Windchill server with the server manager. This resulted in an invalid server location error. I know the server exists, and I have had an admin open all of the ports (so this shouldn't be a port problem), so do you know what the stumbling block is?

[TomU]

Can you access the server from a standalone browser?  The url is exactly the same for Creo (up through the Windchill part).  Keep in mind that it's case sensitive (capital 'W'.)

http://<server name>/Windchill

[kkillian]

I am actually logged in right now. That is the thing that baffles me about the server problem. I am literally copying the URL up to and including the "Windchill."

[TomU]

Have you tried restarting the Creo VM?  Sometimes a Creo process will hang and not work correctly until you either kill it or reboot.  (Not talking about xtop.exe)

[SergeyEfimov]

Can you ping the Windchill server from your Creo workstation?

[kkillian]

I pinged the Windchill server URL and got nothing back. However, when I pinged the server that was hosting Windchill, I got a response. Does that mean I might have some DNS issues?

[SergeyEfimov]

It may be a problem with network connection settings of your virtual machines.

[TomU]

If he can access Windchill from a stand alone web browser on the same virtual machine Creo is installed on, then the network settings should be okay.

[kkillian]

After remoting into the server and connecting via web browser, I have found that there is no issue connecting to Windchill from the vm server that Creo is installed on.

[TomU · Accepted solution]

At this point I would probably try two things.

1. Open a case with tech support and see if they have any ideas.
2. Install Wireshark or Fiddler and see it you can identify the call that is failing.

[kkillian]

Yeah, I think I will escalate this.

Thanks for giving me some help, all!