Exor JMobile HMI — Comms Errors & Diagnostics

Exor · intermediate · 25 min

When an Exor eXware or eX700 panel shows stale tags or a dead device, the fix is in the JMobile protocol config and the panel's own diagnostics. Learn how JMobile drives each device, and how to use system variables to prove whether it's a comms fault or a resource problem.

ℹ️ Exor panels run JMobile on a Linux platform (eX700, eXware, eSMART). A dead device is almost always a driver or parameter mismatch, not a broken panel — and JMobile's system variables let you rule out memory/disk problems before you touch wiring.

How JMobile talks to a device

Exor HMIs are programmed with JMobile, and each connected controller (PLC, drive, meter) is driven by a communication protocol driver you configure in the project. The runtime panels — eX700, eXware, eSMART — run on Linux. Most "HMI not updating" calls come down to the driver or its parameters, so start there:

• Wrong protocol driver for that specific PLC, or the right driver with the wrong parameters.
• Serial: baud rate, data/parity/stop bits, and the station/node number must match the PLC.
• Ethernet: the panel and PLC must share a subnet, with the correct PLC IP, port and unit/station, and no IP conflict.

Use the panel's own diagnostics

Before blaming cables, read what the panel reports about itself. JMobile exposes system variables you can put on a diagnostic page or log:

• CPU_Load, Memory_Usage, Free_Disk — confirm the panel isn't out of memory or disk (a full data-log partition can stall an HMI in ways that look like comms loss).
• SystemTime / SystemDate — sanity-check the clock (matters for logs, alarms and certificates).
• The communication/protocol status — whether the driver reports the device online.

If the resource variables are healthy and the device is still offline, the problem is the link or the driver config, not the panel.

Network config on the Linux panels

On the Linux HMIs (eX700 / eXware / eSMART) you configure the network interfaces (IP, DHCP/static, gateway) in the system settings — a panel on the wrong subnet or expecting DHCP where there's no server will never reach an Ethernet PLC. Set a static IP that matches the machine network.

Step-by-step

1. Check panel health via system variables — Free_Disk / Memory_Usage / CPU_Load. Clear a full log partition if needed.
2. Confirm the driver in the JMobile project matches the exact PLC model.
3. Match the parameters — serial (baud/parity/stop/station) or Ethernet (IP/subnet/port/unit).
4. Verify the panel's network interface (static IP on the machine subnet) on the Linux HMI.
5. Re-download the project after changes and confirm the protocol status shows the device online.

Never do this

Don't hide a comms dropout behind a default or last-known tag value on the screen — an operator reading stale process data is a real hazard. Restore the actual read: fix the driver/parameters or the network, and confirm the device is genuinely online.