Windchill 11.0 M030 CPS01 Not Uploading to WPA

[TomU]

We recently updated to Windchill 11.0 M030 CPS01 and since the update we are no longer seeing data uploaded to the Windchill Performance Advisor website.  I do have a support case open but so far they haven't been able to figure out why.  Is anyone else having this issue?  Is there anyone out there running this same version and CPS of Windchill that is successfully uploading data?

There has definitely been a structural change under the hood.  The "create" and "sent" folders are no longer being used.  Everything is now happening in the "PAA" folder.  None of the items in the red box have been uploaded (as far as I can tell.)  WPA shows nothing after 7/21/2017.

[ahanchat]

Hi,

In 11.0 M030, PA Agent sends the report to PTC.

Since I see you have updated to 11 M030, you would need to validate SCN from Site > Utilities > Windchill Performance Advisor page.

SCN validation will start PA Agent as service and start sending report.

Please note that to Validate SCN, Windchill is started as an Administrator user. After successful validation of SCN, Windchill can re-started as non administrator user.

The limitation of starting as an Administrator user is an issue and we plan to resolve it in upcoming CPS of 11 M030.

Thanks,

Anirudha

[ahanchat]

Before validating SCN, please set the value of property 'periodRetainReportsToSendDays' to 30 in internal.properties.

internal.properties is located in WT_HOME\PAAgent.

This property will esnuer that all the unsent reports of last 30 days are sent. Default value is 10.

Thanks,

Anirudha

[TomU]

xconfmanager doesn't seem to know about this properties file so I just changed the value manually.  Is a server restart required to make it take effect?

By the way, one of my servers is creating lots of files in the PAA folder.  The other server seems to create a new file every day but then discards the old ones.  Any idea why?

Server 1

Server 2

[ahanchat]

In Server 2, can you please check if "PTC Perfomance Advisor Agent" service is available.

If not, could you please re-validate SCN and check MS logs for any errors?

In Server 1, it seems PA Agent is sending report to PTC.

Could you please go to WT_HOME\PAAgent\reports\sent and verify the reports are present.

The property is not in xconfmanager, hence changing it manually is correct way to do it.

Thanks

Anirudha

[TomU]

Server 1 does have the service listed:

The sent folder on server 1 only shows the files created during validation/service creation.  Nothing else has appeared in "sent" since the server update on the 21st.

The reports folder on Server 1 shows files were created this morning but all files from previous days are missing.  It would seem that PAA either deletes the old files or just overwrites them each day:

Server 2 did not have the service.  Revalidating the SCN (again) successfully created the service and generated two new files in the sent data folder:

[TomU]

@ahanchat,

Thanks for the reply.  I have re-validated, twice on each server while logged into Windchill as site admin (wcadmin).  Windchill itself is running under the local system account, so it shouldn't have any issues creating a service.  (I do not have any Windchill users that exist as local server administrators.)

[TomU]

@ahanchat,

Here is an update for you.  Now that the service exists, both servers are acting exactly the same.

1.)  Each morning new data is generated in a temp folder, the contents of the PAA folder is deleted, and the new data is copied back into the PAA folder.

2.)  There were no changes to the "create" folder or the "sent" folder.  There is also nothing in the log file saying anything about actually sending data to PTC.  (I do have "wt.phonehome", "com.ptc.wa", and "wt.jmx.core.transport" all set to "ALL".)

3.)  There were no changes to the performance advisor website.  It's still not receiving any data.

The only errors I can find that might be relevant are these:

• wt.phonehome.reports.BuildPreferenceElements Administrator - Unable to determine value of preference [upload.cgr.files]
• wt.phonehome.reports.BuildPreferenceElements Administrator - Unable to determine value of preference [/com/ptc/wvs/dynamicstructure/cadRepresentedPartConfigurations]
• wt.phonehome.reports.BuildPreferenceElements Administrator - Unable to determine value of preference [/com/ptc/wvs/dynamicstructure/cadrepresentedconfigurationxmllocation]

[ahanchat]

Hi,

Can you please check the reports in WT_HOME\PAAgent\reports\sent path.

If the reports are not in sent folder, can we please check in WT_HOME\PAAgent\reports\collect path.

If the reports are in sent folder, then can you please give me your guids of both the servers via email ahanchat@ptc.com

Thanks,

Anirudha

[TomU]

Fascinating.  There are indeed reports in the PAAgent sent folders.  The server that didn't have the service installed until yesterday also has a bunch of reports in the "not_sent" folder.

         

Full GUIDs have been sent to you via email...

[TomU]

For anyone who might be following this thread, it looks like we have a solution.

Starting with Windchill 11.0 M030, the piece built into Windchill to communicate back to PTC has been replaced by a stand-alone ThingWorx edge client called PAAgent.  It runs as a separate service (on Windows) and is installed automatically the first time the SCN is validated.  It is designed to monitor a set of folders and automatically upload new data back to PTC each day.  It is possible to install this agent by itself and use it to collect performance data from other servers that do not have internet connectivity.

There were two issues with my servers.

1. The service was not installed correctly.  Re-verifying the SCN corrected this (after three attempts.)
2. The Windchill Performance Advisor website was not correctly ingesting the data generated by this new agent.  A fix has already been developed and will be deployed to PTC's production servers tonight.

There are several new articles that tech support is working on to more fully explain all of this.  For new installs or updates to existing installs, it is important to re-verify the SCN.  This will make sure the service is properly installed.  For rehosting scenarios, the process now looks like this:

• Stop the agent (if it's already installed)
• Uninstall the service (PTC will provide a command line utility to do this)
• Rehost
• Startup Windchill
• Run the GUID change utility (CS236189)
• Restart Windchill
• Re-validate the SCN (so the service can be reinstalled)

[Jos]

It is a really interesting topic here.

Even if we are trying to make Windchill Performance Advisor work on our WC 11 m010 cps07 servers. So, no such dedicated service installed. But issues look the same, SCN and transport have been validated and validated again but data is not uploaded to PTC's on our "Proactive Zone". I only see info for 1 server with data uploaded just once, some weeks ago. Meanwhile, on the servers themselves, reports are stored in the folder ...\Windchill\utilities\PerformanceAdvisor\Reports\sent just as if everything always go well...

I have opened a case some weeks ago but issue is still here.

[ahanchat]

Hi Jos,

Can you please provide the case#?

Thanks,

Anirudha

[Jos]

Hi Anirudha,

It is Case 13872829. I have just uploaded logs from last night, from a test server, where it is said :com.ptc.wa.send.WAReportSendManager Administrator - Report was successfully sent on attempt number 1 and took 30.411 seconds. Nevertheless, i do not have anything uploaded on the proactive zone at PTC's...

Regards

Jocelyn

[Marco_Tosin]

Hi Anirudha it is since PTC did some maintenance on PA site two weeks ago, that nothing were loaded for our company (either Creo and Windchill). Look at this discussion: https://community.ptc.com/t5/Discussions/When-Windchill-Performance-Advisor-will-be-back-with-new-data/m-p/490034#M112