Art Code 904 Error

[bogend]

Hello,

I am getting an Art Code 904 Error whenever I click on one of the Screen Select buttons (Load/WC Offset/Tooling, etc.)

Mach 3.043.066
MSM versions 2.0.4, 2.0.9, 2.0.10 Professional -- all with the same problem, running MSM lathe
XP
Smooth Stepper

The screen that I cloned from works fine. From within MSM I can jog the lathe, but I can't switch screens.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Dan

[DaveCVI]

Hi,

The screen that I cloned from works fine. From within MSM I can jog the lathe, but I can't switch screens.

When you say you cloned a screen, do you mean:
1) you used MSM to make a clone of an MSM screenset (via settings page "clone screen" button) and are now loading the clone from within MSM the settings page via the MSM button "load screen"?
or
2) you cloned the MachStdMillLathe.lset file and are now trying to load the via the mach menu "view - loads screens" ?

If #2, that approach can't work with MSM and you'll need to go to #1. While I'd expect #2 to not work (may reasons, I can elaborate if you're interested), I'm surprised it causes an art code error.

An ARt code is what mach says when mach is really confused and goes belly up inside the mach code - alas, the error number is not informative and does not point to a specific problem (so Brian has told me in the past).

If you are already doing #1, then I don't know what's happening off the top of my head. Let me know answers to the above and I'll go from there to help figure out what is happening.

Dave

[DaveCVI]

Oh, I forgot to ask - if you go back to the screen you cloned from - all then works OK re page changes?
Dave

[bogend]

Hi,

The screen that I cloned from works fine. From within MSM I can jog the lathe, but I can't switch screens.

When you say you cloned a screen, do you mean:
1) you used MSM to make a clone of an MSM screenset (via settings page "clone screen" button) and are now loading the clone from within MSM the settings page via the MSM button "load screen"?
or
2) you cloned the MachStdMillLathe.lset file and are now trying to load the via the mach menu "view - loads screens" ?

If #2, that approach can't work with MSM and you'll need to go to #1. While I'd expect #2 to not work (may reasons, I can elaborate if you're interested), I'm surprised it causes an art code error.

An ARt code is what mach says when mach is really confused and goes belly up inside the mach code - alas, the error number is not informative and does not point to a specific problem (so Brian has told me in the past).

If you are already doing #1, then I don't know what's happening off the top of my head. Let me know answers to the above and I'll go from there to help figure out what is happening.

Dave

Hi Dave,

I mean that I was following the directions for "Cloning an existing hardware profile to run MachStdMill." I made a copy of a Lathe screenset that worked, opened it up, and then did View/LoadScreens and selected the MSMill latheset from the /Mach3 directory. I have three other machines running MSM (one lathe, two mills) and am doing the same thing that I did with them.

Thanks,

Dan

[bogend]

Hi Dave,

On your follow-up question, the screenset that works is the standard Mach3Turn, with the correct hardware setup.

Thanks,

Dan

[DaveCVI]

Dan,

ok, here is what I understand at the moment:
You have the lathe running with stock mach using a profile that I don't know the name of so I'll call it "StockLatheProfile" for this post.
This is the name of the mach profile - i.e. on the disk in the mach dir there is a file: StockLatheProfile.lset
Note that this is not the name of the screen set that is the profile is using - they are separate things.

To run the lathe with MSM you would do this:
1) start mach without any command line params to tell mach a profile to use. This brings mach up in what is called the "mach loader".
Mach will display a dialog that lets you pick the profile to use... it also lets do some profile manipulation tasks. One of those is the "Create profile" button - click it.
2) now you select a profile name (In this case pick StockLatheProfile" and type in a new name for the clone profile. I"ll call the new profile "NewLatheProfile". Do NOT check "default Profile Values". Click OK.

Note this does more than copy the XML file to a new name, mach also sets up some dirs for macros etc as part of the process.
Some people try to just manuall copy the XML file - which is not enough. If you did that approach, please re make the new profile using this process instead.

3) now will be back to the "pick a profile to run" dialog - and now there is a "NewLatheProfile" choiec in the list to pick. Pick the new one and let mach start.
The NewLatheProfile will come up running the same screen set as the StockLatheProfile.
4) now we switch the new profile to MSM - this is where we use the mach menus, view load screens to pick MachStdMillLathe.lset
Mach will reload the screen set and now this NewLatheProfile will be showing the MSM lathe screens.

5) close mach (to get the changes written into the XML file - mach only does this in exit).
6) restart mach using NewLatheProfile - all should be OK.

If these are the steps you followed, and it is at this point that any page button causes an art code, then we have a new mystery for me to investigate.

First diagnostic step would be to re-run the MSM installer (this will clean up any bad files if it finds any) and try to start mach with NewLathePRofile again.

Is it now happy?
If not, please send me the NewLatheProfile.xml file from the mach3 dir via email and I'll see what happens when I try to run it here.

Dave

[bogend]

Hi Dave,

I've been following the procedure that you spelled out for setting up MSM with my hardware profile. I've set up three other machines without any problem, so I'm sure that I'm doing it correctly. I tried reinstalling MSM, but it didn't help. I also regenerated the profile XML file, starting from a "clean" lathe profile, on the off chance that the XML file was corrupted; but that didn't help either. I will email you the XML file, but I couldn't find an email address on the website.

Thanks,

Dan

[DaveCVI]

I will email you the XML file, but I couldn't find an email address on the website.

Sorry about that - I sent you a PM with email address.
I'm not really trying to hide from customers, just from the spam bots that scan forums...

Dave

[DaveCVI]

Fyi to readers of the thread -
An Art code 904 is an internal fault code from inside Mach3.
I've been told by Brian that it it can occur when mach falls into an internal code execution timing hole (yes, apparently mach is written with such things as software timing loops...).
Dan was using a old surplus PC; given the mention of "timing hole", he decided to try a bit faster PC - and like magic the problem went away...

Dave