The following is a message from Sing Lee, who proposes a procedure to
recover from EPICS failures. For our part, it requires us to phone the
control room (ext 7333) and report the failure of the M13 EPICS
secondary channel control program, when we see the "white screen".

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It has been noticed that once or twice a month the IOC (input output
controller) would lose communication with ccssunp1. This results in
all the data fields in the m20 display turning to white color and not
getting the real data.  The cause of this is still being investigated
and believed to be related to the EPICS verion running in VxWorks.

There are two watchdogs in place, one in the IOC and one in ccssunp1,
that are being scanned. When one or both of them stop, messages will
be generated and sent to the cyclotron control room.

We have set up a procedure for the cyclotron operator to reboot the
IOC to re-establish communication with ccssunp1. Our plan is to get
every shift familiar with the equipment so they know how to reboot the
IOC properly. Therefor, upon the above failure, please phone the
control room to confirm the fault and request them to reboot the IOC.