11th December 2021 (Europe 1)

We have worked hard to deliver a great MindSphere experience, but we are still tracking some known issues. If you find others, please give us your feedback by contacting our MindSphere Support.

We recommend that you read the following release notes carefully. These notes contain important information for installation and use.

This Release Notes is relevant for MindSphere region Europe 1, for release in December 2021.

Applicable for:

• IIoT for Makers

What's new?

• It is now possible for the users to rename variables in an aspect-type and rename aspects of an asset-type.

Known issues

• If a VFC workflow for an asset in a subtenant exists, it is not shown in the respective tile in the Asset Manager for a tenant admin.

• The Fleet Manager navigation is not working correctly if you have to re-login, as query parameters are lost. This problem will be addressed soon. Please try again by clicking the Fleet Manager navigation button.

• If you are using app specific roles, you need to assign plugin roles as well. This is now only possible for MindConnect LIB plugin, MindConnect Nano and MindConnect IoT2040.

• The Connectivity Management view currently only shows assets derived by BasicAgent, MindConnect Nano, MindConnect IoT2040, MindConnect Library or Industrial Edge or a derived type of the mentioned ones.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

What's new?

• Within this release, it is now possible to rename or delete individual variables from aspect types even if there are already assets instantiated for this type.

• As part of Capability Package, we have imposed technical hard limits to safe guard the system. The following are the recommended limits:

  Object Type	Hard/Technical limit
  Variable defined in an AspectType	20
  AspectType associated with an AssetType	30
  Direct variable on a AssetType	25
  Max depth in AssetType hierarchy	05
  Max depth in Asset hierarchy	25
  Overall Max Asset Attribute count	500

  It is recommended to use alternative way to create new aspect type with required variables if limit of aspect variable reached.

  Please note that these limits are imposed on New Capability Package tenants only.

Known issues

• Currently, it is possible to use a variable name equal to the aspect name which leads to errors, for example in Fleet Manager.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

Additional Info:

• Available and Updated buildpacks:

• PostgreSQL11 Migration Assist is available. It is recommended to migrate your a9s PostgreSQL 9.4. The version 9.4 is deprecated and will be removed in the future.https://developer.mindsphere.io/paas/a9s-postgresql/using.html#migrate-the-service-instance-to-another-postgresql-version-into-new-postgresql-instance

• Please note that redis32 and rabbitmq36 are going to be deprecated and might be removed in the future.

• Buildpack version deprecation warnings:

  • The first release of the Ruby buildpack after 2021-04-23 will no longer include ruby versions 2.5.x. 

    The first release of the Go buildpack after 2021-04-23 will no longer include Go versions 1.14.x.

• Parachute values added to Backing Service Metrics API - You can now see the Parachute threshold and if your Backing Services was stopped or is going to be stopped.

• Backing Service Backup Page added to LogMe Service Dashboard. The Kibana Page can be opened with a link on Backing Service Backup Page.

What's new?

• AI for Everyone is available as part of Basic, Standard, Premium Capability Packages in the new Capability Package, with this release.

  AI for Everyone is accessible from the user interface of Operations Insight. It offers you an out-of-the-box journey to create predictive models for faster and better forecasting and anomaly detection on your time series data, using advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. AI for Everyone is an easy and efficient way for you to leverage your time series data and achieve immediate insights.

  AI for Everyone offers Essential Forecasting capabilities in this release:

  • Prepare dataset from Asset model, assign target and predictors, and configure mathematic parameters for forecasting generation.

  • Quickly view forecasting results of predicted time series values, predictors importance, model accuracy metrics, historic forecasting records, etc.

  • Utilize them for your focused use cases like comparing with threshold value, generating work-order for maintenance schedule based on predicted values, reviewing historic forecasting records for model selection, etc.

• Subscribers of Basic, Standard or Premium Capability Packages can now purchase AI for Everyone Forecast Quota Upgrade Add-on in the new Capability Package in this release with 200 additional Forecast executions per month for usage in Essential and Advanced Forecast capabilities. The usage quota from this Add-on can be consumed by forecast execution from either Essential Forecasting in Capability Packages or Advanced Forecasting Add-on.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

Fixed issues

• Fixed a sporadic HTTP ERROR 431

Applicable for:

• MindAccess IoT Value Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

Known issues

• Only single asset sharing is available in the first release.

• Sharing of assets derived from basicAgent and their corresponding plugins is not yet supported.

• Tenant assets cannot be moved under collaborators root asset or shared assets.

• The successful implementation of a new sharing is normally completed within 2 minutes. If the new sharing is not successful within this time, the internal retry mechanism starts automatically after 4 minutes to complete the sharing. This issue will be addressed soon to prevent delays in the implementation.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess IoT Value Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

Known issues

• If you receive NULL values for timestamps on a Windows PC, please change your language for non-Unicode programs to English (United States). You'll find the settings in Control Panel → Region and Language → Administrative.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

What's new?

• The subscribers of Basic, Standard or Premium Capability Packages can now purchase the Cloud Foundry add-on on demand to run Cloud Foundry-hosted apps.

  After purchase, the Cloud Foundry add-on will be provisioned to customer's Productive and Development (if already created) Environment.

  This add-on provides the following scopes:

  • 2 Cloud Foundry Orgs (one for the Development Environment, one for the Productive Environment)

  • 2 GB Cloud Foundry RAM per Org

  • Up to 50 Backing Services instances in pay-per-use mode

  If required, a quota upgrade for both, Backing Services and Cloud Foundry RAM can be additionally purchased.

Known issues

• Currently, it is not possible to call MindSphere Core API's (e.g. Asset Management) from API Apps when using them as external dependencies from Standard Application hosted on different tenant.

• Currently, not all roles and scopes are supported by Custom App Credentials. In this case, use the other provided options.

• Application versions that contain a "#" character cannot be deployed in the Operator Cockpit. We advise customers not to use "#" in production version strings.

• Applications cannot be deleted after being transferred to the production system.

• the System is automatically suggesting an Internal App Name and an Initial Version for more convenience.

• Layout issues in Internet Explorer 11 in combination with high resolution displays and 125 % font scaling.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess IoT Value Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

What's new?

• Edge Analytics is now available with the Capability Packages.

• Within this release, a Limit Check extension for Analysis Packages is now available, which allows to configure simple limit checks against warning and alarm levels for time series KPIs. The limit checks are directly performed on the edge level and the determined health status is uploaded to Operations Insight.

• Within this release, we have introduced a "What's New" Button to get information about new released features for each version.

• Within this release, we have removed "MindConnect" from the app name.

Known Issues

• Note: When executing too many Analysis Packages with a Trigger Rule of condition type "Continuous", the CPU performance of the Edge Device can easily be exceeded. Also in other scenarios dependent of tasks running in parallel on the Edge Device, CPU load and also memory usage can get too high. Please check the Edge Analytics log for corresponding warnings.

• When uploading Event Based Data Upload or Data Upload package to an Edge Device and there are no enabled input signals within the Analysis Package configuration, the update ends in error state "Prepare Environment or Update/Start Configuration". Having critical error message in User Logs.

• Deactivating a data point within a MindConnect data source will not deactivate a connection check in Edge Analytics Engine. This can lead to an error if the target device is no longer available.

• A Bugfix has been introduced for Custom Analysis Packages, which can lead to incompatible existing Templates. In this case please export the flow and recreated the Custom Analysis Package.

• In case the Cycle Time for a Custom Analysis Package is put to the template UI, an input value is overwritten with the default value.

• It is recommended to use at minimum Mozilla version 78.0.2 or Microsoft Edge version 83. To ensure the app will be loaded correct.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

What's new?

• With this release, the bulk API will have higher limits for event creation, the limit is increased from 50 to 150 events at a time.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

Known issues

• If you have problems logging off in Internet Explorer 11, please refer to Overcoming Logout Problems in IE11. 

• App specific roles: 

  • Additional core app roles are coming soon.

  • Some apps are still accessible via their direct URL and allow the use of shared functionality if the user has been granted rights via the app-specific role of a different app.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess IoT Value Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

What's new?

• Within this release, we have Improved user interface for search by providing a combination of parameters and operators to search objects within Integrated Data Lake.

• It is now possible to view images associated with the objects from within the Integrated Data Lake Plugin in Fleet Manager.

Known issues

• In Time Series Import user interface, the user can only view first level of child asset at the moment when importing the time series data.  The workaround for this approach is to use backend API to import data related to multiple child assets

• It is observed that browser crashes randomly when trying to download files > 400MB.  It is advisable to use backend API for downloading objects > 400MB

• When uploading the data using cross account access via native applications e.g. AWS CLI, the default permission is set to user of the account. The user has to provide the parameter (--acl bucket-owner-full-control) so the bucket owner (Integrated Data Lake) will get the necessary access to generate pre-signed URLs.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess IoT Value Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

Known issues

• For security reasons, a strict timeout is enforced. Currently, this leads to the situation that the size of a file which can be uploaded/ downloaded depends on the network bandwidth at client side.

• When uploading files to the File Service, a file name cannot contain blank spaces. Blank spaces in the file name will prevent the file from being stored.

• After deleting an asset, the associated files might still be accessible for up to 30 minutes as this data is deleted asynchronously.

• After deleting a file, it will take some time (up to 60 seconds) to create the file with the same name again.

• After creating or deleting the file, it will take some time (up to 3 seconds) to get the file in "search file" API.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess IoT Value Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

What's new?

• Within this release, we provide support to time series data access based on the new ability to remove and rename variable.

Known issues

• The maximum payload size of a message sent to Time Series Service as part of a PUT request cannot exceed 1 MB.

• The service will never return more than 2000 records in a response.

• After deleting an asset, respective time series data might still be accessible for up to 30 minutes as this data is deleted asynchronously.

• When getting the job status of a bulk import job, the response might not always contain detailed information on errors that occurred.

• When creating or updating an aspect it might take up to 30 minutes until aggregated data can be read for this aspect. Writing data or reading raw data is possible immediately.

• When ingesting time series data for multiple asset and aspects in single request, the combination of records should be unique.

• Get Latest Value with query parameter "latestValue = true" will work with a delay up to 2 hours from the time of ingestion. Refer to developer documentation 'sample' section for more information.

• While using Get Latest Value with query parameter  "latestValue = true", historic/late arriving data may take more than 1 day to reflect in the response.

Applicable for:

• MindSphere IIoT for Makers

What's new?

• Within this release, we extend our IIoTAuthenticator with a error handler microflow which can be used as a default odata error handler. This microflow is executed in case of an error, it logs the error and provides a human readable string of the error, which is shown to the user in an error message.

Applicable for:

• Subscribers of MindAccess Plans

• Subscribers of Capability Packages

What's new?

• Subscribers of MindSphere Basic, Standard or Premium Packages can now subscribe to Remote Service.

System Requirements for MindSphere Remote Service (MRS)

Browser-based access to MindSphere Remote Service App

• Microsoft WindowsTM 10 version 1909: Google ChromeTM (version 68 or newer)

• recommended screen resolution: 1280x1024 and 1920x1080 with zoom level 100%

Requirements for service personnel's Operator PCs hosting MRS Operator Client (entry point for secure remote service connections)

• Operator Client can be downloaded from MRS

• Validated Hardware

  • Processor: 32-bit or x64-based (Intel or AMD)

  • Display size / resolution: 1280x1024 and 1920x1080 with zoom level 100%*

  • Disk space occupied by Operator Client: 32MB

• Validated Operating Systems and Browsers

  • Microsoft Windows ^TM 10 Version 1909

  • Linux ® Debian 9

  • Linux ® RedHat 7.6

  • Google Chrome^TM version 68 or newer

Requirements for Serviced Assets hosting MRS Device Client (end point for secure remote service connection)

• Device Client can be downloaded from MRS

• Validated Hardware

  • Processor: 32-bit or x64-based (Intel or AMD)

  • RAM: 0.5GB

  • Disk space occupied by Device Client: 32MB

• Validated Operating Systems

  • Microsoft Windows^TM 10 Version 1909

  • Linux ® Debian 9

  • Linux ® RedHat 8

Requirements for Remote Service protocols

• Operating system of Operator PC must provide clients for the used outgoing Remote Login protocols (e.g. RDP, VNC), whilst Engineering Tools used remotely on Operator PC typically have built-in clients for such protocols  

• Operating system of Serviced Assets must provide servers for the incoming Remote Login protocols (e.g. RDP, VNC) or for the incoming Remote Engineering protocols

• Native Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) can only be launched from Windows^TM based Operator PCs supporting this Remote Login protocol

• The download package of the Operator Client contains a Windows driver (installer file MRSTransparentProxy.msi) for Proxy-Unaware protocol

• Remote Engineering via Proxy-Unaware protocol is only available on Windows^TM based Operator PCs

Known issues

• There is no auto-assignment of RDP (and Ping) to secondary Service Assets. These must be assigned manually via MRS Protocol Applications.

• Service Assets may be serviced without upfront registration by means of On-Demand Devices. Such On-Demand Devices have an expiration date, and they will show up in the MRS asset tree until then. The expiration date is not enforced, so manual de-registration is necessary.

• Connectivity status of secondary Service Assets behind a gateway might not be shown as "connected", even though the secondary Service Asset can be accessed.

• Configuration changes are tracked in audit trail and system logs. Selected changes could be also be propagated via email notifications, which are not available for connection establishment or file transfers.

• It is recommended to have "Red Button" deactivated when working on the related Service Asset to ensure its proper setup.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

What's new?

• Within this release, we provide template support parity for emails.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

What's new?

• The subscribers of Basic, Standard or Premium Capability Packages can now purchase the Cloud Foundry add-on on demand to run Cloud Foundry-hosted apps.

  After purchase, the Cloud Foundry add-on will be provisioned to customer's Productive and Development (if already created) Environment.

  This add-on provides the following scopes:

  • 2 Cloud Foundry Orgs (one for the Development Environment, one for the Productive Environment)

  • 2 GB Cloud Foundry RAM per Org

  • Up to 50 Backing Services instances in pay-per-use mode

  If required, a quota upgrade for both, Backing Services and Cloud Foundry RAM can be additionally purchased.

Known issues

• Limitations for update of Cloud Foundry applications:

  • The service instance names for each service should be same in the current and new version of the application. If the service instance names are different in the new version and the existing version of an application, then the existing service instances will not be readily available even after zero-downtime version upgrade.

  • During manual deployment of a new version of an application, do not use the same component names as available in the existing version. This might create name conflicts and usability issues. In order to avoid such conflicts, while deploying a new version of an application, append green at the end of the component name.

• For every individual (single) application, one Cloud Foundry space must be deployed.

• After modifying the authorization of a user via the Operator Cockpit user interface, the change is not immediately visible. The user has to close the browser and login again.

• After deployment of an app, there is a security feature in place validating if the app is known to MindSphere or the app has somehow been modified. Sometimes issues occur with regards to name changes or deploying from various folders. The apps need to be deployed as they are assigned from the developer.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess IoT Value Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

Known issues

• This application is only supported on a normal desktop computer, and is not supported on mobile devices like tablets.

• Work orders are not supported for sub-tenants

• Rules are not enabled for sub-tenant users

Applicable for:

• MindAccess IoT Value Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

What's new?

• The subscribers of Capability Packages can now purchase Predictive Learning Essentials in the new packaging and pricing.

• Within this release, provisioning of PRL add on package with new packaging and pricing is enabled.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess IoT Value Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

What's new?

• Within this release, we have grouped the available modules and functions in the left-hand navigation bar, in Settings.

Known issues

• MindSphere Start for Free is only compatible with a web browser and therefore cannot be launched from a mobile browser.

• The creation of tenant takes approximately 2 minutes.

• If the TourGuide is interrupted, check that your internet connection is stable. If this is not the problem, then re-launch the user journey from your Launchpad.

• The data coming from the simulated pump asset will only be available the first 7 days after account creation.

• While trying to launch an auto registered app which was created with the same name as that of a deleted app, a "Forbidden" error occurs.

  Workaround: The issue does not occur if you re-launch the browser after registration and then launch the app again.

• For tenants with Enabled Session Persistency (see documentation), it is not recommended to use Google Chrome in incognito mode.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess IoT Value Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

Known issues

• Applications can use the subtenant functionality via the provided APIs. Tenant administrators should pay attention when assigning such apps to subtenant users as subtenant isolation cannot be ensured by the platform. The app might expose data to the user that is not intended to be seen.

• When moving an asset from a parent tenant to a subtenant, there might be a delay of up to 30 minutes until a subtenant user will be able to see data related to that asset.

• Please be aware, if you provide a user (even subtenant user) the role "mdsp:core:TenantAdmin", this user is then able to get access to all kinds of tenant data.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess IoT Value Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

What's new?

• The Upgrade tool is now available for the subscribers of Basic, Standard and Premium Capability Packages.

  In Upgrade, users with the right roles ("Buyer") can purchase available products to extend their Accounts (e.g. upgrade to the next Capability Package, purchase Cloud Resource Packages, Add-ons or Apps).

  Upgrade will be provided in the Production Environment of a given Capability Package.

Known issues

• Currently no personalized notifications for subscriptions (TenantAdmin) or subscription requests (StandardUser) are available.

• Purchasing request notifications are send to all tenant admins.

• Upgrade is providing a fast provisional access to the requested quota. It requires an approval by the commercial contact who will be informed separately.

• Supported Language: English only.

• Supported Currency: EUR only.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

What's new?

• Within this release, UTS provides billing transparency feature which offers monthly usages to the customers. This includes the optional custom tags for each usage. This enables the customers to align the UTS reporting schema better with their invoices.

  • Users can pass the required information via the a payload to UTS

  • Custom tags and user details will be a part of this payload

  • UTS will include this information in monthly exports

Applicable for:

• MindAccess IoT Value Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

What's new?

• The subscribers of Capability Packages can now purchase Visual Explorer in the new packaging and pricing.

Known issues

• For using Visual Explorer and Visual Explorer Connector, a minimum screen size of 800x600 is required.

• Any request within Visual Explorer is limited to an execution time of 60 sec.

• The "share via link" functionality works unreliable.

• For the time series data type “LONG”, only safe integer values are supported from (-2⁵³+1 to (2⁵³-1). Values outside of that range will be reset to safe integer values, example: 2⁶³ will be reset to 2⁵³-1.

Applicable for:

• MindAccess IoT Value Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Developer Plan Subscribers

• MindAccess Operator Plan Subscribers

Known issues:

• Subtenant users cannot use the time series subscription node.

• Compute hours are assigned to the main tenant only. This means that VFC cannot be used with additional test tenants.