FTA Chartscan technical guide

Installation Requirements

• Processor: - Pentium 4 – 3GHz or above
• Memory (RAM): - 1GB minimum, although 2GB or above is recommended
• Hard Drive: - 40GB of available hard disk space
• Peripherals: - Panasonic KVS-1025C / KVS-1046C scanner
• Note: Requires the full Panasonic software installation
• Interfaces: - 1 free USB port for scanner
• Software: - Microsoft .net framework 4
• Microsoft Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 2.0 Service Pack 3
• Local Administrator rights to install the software.

View our FTA Charstcan Installation Guide

To the following location C:\Program Files (x86)\FTA\FTAChartScan

Internet access to Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (Web Installer)

In some cases, the Windows Image Acquisition Service (WIA) may encroach on the scanning process at the point of placing charts in the scanner, with a dialog box asking for you to select which scanner you are using.

To prevent this condition occurring, the service can be disabled (providing you have no other dependent software installed) through Windows Computer Management

Troubleshooting FTAChartScan login problems

When you run the FTAChartScan software you may see the following message:

Login failed - FTAChartScan may be experiencing problems. Please contact a system administrator.

This message is usually caused by problems with installation, or communication problems between the FTAChartScan software and the server.

For installation problems, please check the following:

• The version of Windows that you are running is Windows XP or later
• Windows is fully up to date with all service packs and updates (run Windows Update)
• Microsoft webservice security is correctly installed. You can check this as follows:

In Windows XP go to ‘Control Panel | Add and Remove Programs’. 

You should see and entry in the list called ‘Microsoft WSE 2.0 SP3’

In Windows 7 and later go to ‘Control Panel | Programs and Features’. In the list you should see an item called ‘Microsoft WSE 2.0 SP3’

If all of these are true, then the problem is likely to be caused by a connectivity issue between the FTAChartScan software and the servers. If the FTAChartScan software is running behind a corporate firewall and/or proxy server, it must negotiate a path through these systems. FTAChartScan uses standard secure HTTP (HTTPS) protocols to communicate, so no special ports need to be opened in the firewall.

These are the steps to take to find out what the exact problem is:

1. Check the date and time on the PC where FTAChartScan is running. If the date or time on this PC is not correct, then messages sent from FTAChartScan to the server can 'time-out'. Check that the date, time and 'Current time zone' are all correct.

2. If the date/time is correct and you still cannot log in, the issue may be caused by a proxy server. In some cases it is necessary to amend the configuration file for the FTAChartScan to cater for the proxy server.

Configure FTA ChartScan for use with a proxy server

You need the IP address (or UNC name) and port number of your proxy server

Open the FTAChartScan configuration file 'FTAChartScan.exe.config' (or sometimes shown as just ‘FTAChartScan.exe’ with type ‘CONFIG file’) in a text editor (e.g. Notepad) - the file can be found in the FTAChartScan installation directory, which is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\FTA\FTAChartScan\

This file allows specific proxy server details to be added for installations where the default proxy server set in Internet Explorer is non-standard, or where explicit authentication to the proxy server is needed for Internet access.

About half way down the file is an entry that looks like this:

<!-- The webProxyUri setting allows an explicit URI to be specified for a proxy server, and allows access to the FTAChartScan webservices from behind a firewall. If an explicit URI value is required, then set it here (e.g. value="172.11.22.33:80"), otherwise if no explcit setting is required or if the IE default proxy is suitable then set value="" (i.e. empty string). Note that in any case the default credentials are used (generally the logged-in user's Windows domain login account) for proxy authentication - these cannot be explicitly set. -->

<add key="webProxyUri" value="" />

If the IP address of your proxy server is, for example, '111.222.333.444' and the port number is '8080' then modify the file like this:

<add key="webProxyUri" value="111.222.333.444:8080" />

(Note the IP address is followed immediately by the port number, separated by a colon with no spaces)

The next entry also needs modification, and it looks like this:

<!-- The webProxyAllowedUris setting allows zero or more semi-colon separated URIs to be specified. In the case that explicit proxy authentication is required (i.e. login prompt appears when accessing the Internet, even after Windows login) these URIs will be assigned credentials entered by the user. -->
<add key="webProxyAllowedUris" value="https://www.echofta.com/" />

If the IP address and port number of your proxy server is, for example, ‘111.222.333.444:8080’ then modify the file like this (note that the ‘http://’ is required here):

<add key="webProxyAllowedUris" value="http://111.222.333.444:8080;https://www.echofta.com/" />

(Note how the two addresses are separated by a semi-colon.)
Save the file.

Restart FTAChartScan and try to login. If at this stage it is still not possible to login, please contact the FTA.