Alarm and Event Categories that are Specific to the Sparkplug™ Driver

Each alarm and event on a Geo SCADA Expert system has a Category that indicates the type of alarm or event. The Category is included by default in the Events List and, if applicable, the Alarms List and the Alarm Banner.

You can optionally filter the entries in either List by category—the entries from which you can choose comprise various ‘core’ categories, along with any categories that are specific to the drivers that are installed on your system.

On systems on which this driver is installed, in addition to the ‘core’ alarm and event categories, these driver-specific categories are available:

Sparkplug Object Creation Error—During initial configuration or later expansion of your system, you can use the Create Devices from Device Birth Messages and Create Points from Birth Metrics pick actions to trigger Geo SCADA Expert to automatically create the required Sparkplug Devices and Points in the database. Alarms and events in this category indicate whether Geo SCADA Expert has detected an issue and has therefore been unable to completely fulfill either of these requests. An alarm is raised to indicate such an issue, and an event is logged which provides further information about that issue. Typically an issue might occur due to one of the following:
- Geo SCADA Expert's attempt to create a database Device or Point from a metric has failed. Part of the creation process might involve automatically creating a new Group in which to place the new Device or Points. There is a limit to the number of hierarchical levels of Groups that you can include in a Geo SCADA Expert database. If the creation process will exceed this limit, Geo SCADA Expert will be unable to create the new Group and the Device or Points within that Group.
- Geo SCADA Expert has detected that a metric already has a corresponding Point in the database, however the attempt to modify the configuration of that Point to align it with that of the metric has failed. This could occur, for example, if the Sparkplug data type has changed so significantly that it is not compatible with the Sparkplug Point's current type.
Sparkplug Online State—These comprise entries that indicate the connection status of Sparkplug Edge Nodes and Sparkplug Devices. An alarm is raised whenever an Edge Node or Device goes offline. The alarm clears and an event is logged when the Edge Node or Device goes online.
For information about the current connection status of a specific Edge Node or Device, look at the Online State and Online State Alarm attributes on the item's Status display.

Sparkplug Sequence Number Error—Each Sparkplug Edge Node and Sparkplug device includes a sequence number in each message that it transmits. These start at zero (0) with NBIRTH messages and increment for other messages up to 255, at which stage the numbering restarts again from zero.

Alarms and events in this category indicate whether Geo SCADA Expert has received any messages that are out of sequence, or if the Edge Node's NBIRTH sequence number is greater than 255. This latter issue might occur if the equipment with which Geo SCADA Expert is communicating does not adhere to the Sparkplug™ Specification. An alarm subcondition indicates whether Geo SCADA Expert is still able to communicate with such equipment, or whether the sequence numbers that it transmits are out of range.

Geo SCADA Expert raises a Fleeting Alarm on the relevant Sparkplug Edge Node if such a sequence number issue is detected. The fleeting alarm is assigned the Severity level that is configured for alarms and events on that Edge Node (see Configure the Properties on the Edge Node Tab). The table below provides more information:

Alarm	Subcondition	Comments
Sequence number alarm	Sequence number missing	The sequence number in the message that Geo SCADA Expert received was not the number that was expected. This indicates that messages from the Sparkplug Edge Node or Sparkplug device might have been lost.
Initial sequence number alarm	Initial sequence number out-of-range	The NBIRTH message that Geo SCADA Expert received had a sequence number that was greater than 255. The equipment does not appear to adhere to the Sparkplug™ specification, therefore Geo SCADA Expert is unable to communicate with that Edge Node and any associated Sparkplug device.