citect waiting for alarm database initialization

Hello.

I have the same issue with Citect 2018R2, running as a service. In my case the secondary Alarm server is running well and the primary is always starting with the same message "waiting for alarm database initialization".

I found this: https://www.se.com/in/en/faqs/FA235872/ My topology is ok, but I have two IP adresses in each AlarmServer (and just one is defined in topology - network adresses). I already tried with or without DSN name configured in topology - computers configuration and the result is the same. 

Any hint?

I found in ...\logs\tracelog.Alarm.??MyProject??.ALR_SRV_1 with:

2021-06-08 12:53:32.870              Error      Transport                           TcpipTransport::EndConnect() [CLIENT 0.0.0.0:62964 --> 172.????:2082 #1] SocketException: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it 172.????:2082

2021-06-08 12:53:59.342              Error      Transport                           TcpipTransport::EndConnect() [CLIENT 0.0.0.0:63055 --> 172.????:2082 #2] SocketException: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it 172.????:2082

2021-06-08 12:54:04.343              Error      Transport                           TcpipTransport::EndConnect() [CLIENT 0.0.0.0:63070 --> 172.????:2082 #2] SocketException: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it 172.????:2082

it appears to be firewall related, but citect runtime  and citect runtime 64 are in the allowed processes.

When you say two IP addresses in each alarm server, are there two network cards on the same subnet? It might be worth temporarily disabling one network card and just run the one IP address configured in the project. The DSN name is really required when running with encryption enabled.

Is this machine you are testing on a VM? I have heard of another tester internally having trouble where his client process could never connect to local processes, which turned out to be an issue with the VM and host network config.

Try run the Example project and see if it runs and connections work. Then if that works, run your project and check using netstat -a that the processes are listening on those expected ports defined in the project

Olivier I believe while the DNS name is required when you define the Computer, for the Network, it is better to use one IP address for the moment as per other issues that may be raised.
Nuno Ventura let continue with support.

The servers have two network cards, but with different subnets (one for field, other for office).

I disabled encryption (still running as service).

This is in production, not test, but is virtualized on ESXi,

One of the servers had Windows Firewall active for public network, I turn it off and the alarm servers finish syncro and are working ok.

I put the DSN names again and it's still working.

Next step: reactivate encryption.

After next step: fight with windows firewall to discover why it doesn't respect the exception rules. Or why the rules are wrong.

Very strange! Do share your findings of what was blocking those ports. I find Windows Firewall has been reliable in the past, especially when you let Citect installer add exceptions.

Good morning

Encryption on again, all ok.

netstat -a -b shows the established connections between the two PCs in the ports:

2080 (7 connections out; 7 in) Citect.exe

2082 (6 connections out; 6 in) Citect32.exe

2084 (7 connections out; 6 in) Citect32.exe

2085 (7 connections out; 7 in) Citect32.exe

5482 (2 connections out; 3 in) Citect.exe

There are other citect established out connections with PLCs and MySQL

Checking firewall rules (with command "netsh advFirewall Firewall show rule name=all"), in both PCs are the same, there are 4 rules, all for allow, any IP, any port, direction "in" and profile "Private" , 2 for UDP and 2 for TCP and each one for Citect SCADA Runtime or Citect SCADA runtime (x64).