TB0410 Common winMulti Startup Problems

Author avatarGareth Green | Last edit 6/11/2020 by Gareth Green being drafted

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Common winMulti Startup Problems

Contents

The Stuga winMulti program relies on a set of setup files on the hard drive to provide all the customer-specific data. Sometimes these files can get blanked or corrupted, and external action is needed to resolve the issue. The corruption can happen due to

  • Windows errors
  • Network problems (cabling and hubs / switches, network ports on PCs)
  • Power spikes
  • Powering off machine


File Location Description
Sclick.txt c:\multi\

c:\saw\

This file is blanked every time the software is initialised, and then written to with a log of the initialisation action happening. The idea is that if initialisation is incomplete, the sclick file shows where it stopped. This is a good clue to where the problem is.

winMulti has text data written in it

Saw software needs decoding - see Saw sclick codes

params.saw C:\multi\ This file contains all the setup parameters, and is saved / overwritten when a parameter is changed. If it is corrupted, you must replace with a file from a recent backup. If a recent backup is not available. The machine accuracy may need to be set up again.
SAM Label files C:\saw\samout\ To initiate printing a label, a text file for each label is created in a special folder. The filename is a random 6 digit number ending .SAM. This file contains a short text string referencing the batch number and the piece number in the batch. From this, the winMulti software looks up the label information and sends it to the printer via the network.

If the SAM file is incomplete, blank or corrupt, it can cause the software to hang up when the software is initialised and the label printing routine starts processing the contents of the SAM folder. Simply delete the contents of the SAM folder to get the software to start. The labels “in the queue” will be lost but can easily be reprinted

Offcuts.saw c:\multi\

c:\saw\

This file can get quite big and difficult to manage with lots of coloured profiles, and the software has to attempt to condition it by clearing out the used offcuts. Sometimes the conditioning can take a while and if there is an interruption during this, the file can be corrupted, rendering the file useless. If the file is deleted, all the offcut information will be lost, so a good way to check is to rename the offcuts.saw file to offcuts.old. The software will then create a blank file. If this is not the problem, the offcuts.saw file can be renamed back again.
work.449 C:\multi\ This file is the “live” record of where the machine is in the batch. It is overwritten whenever the bar queue changes. It can be deleted and the batch can be reloaded from old batches from the beginning. The only loss will be the position in the batch previously worked


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