Emerson AMS can’t talk to any live devices

So recently could not connect to any live devices on Emerson AMS, either on the device list or through the Multiplexer list. Our system uses Spectrum Connects to provide virtual multiplexers, which I found wasn’t running in the background. Further research showed that each time I tried to start Spectrum Connects it gave a an error similar to #1 Picture Not Available.

After tinkering a while, I finally went ahead and rebooted the server. I then ran Spectrum Connects which started and scanned just fine. Once complete, I started AMS Device Manager. At first it still couldn’t see any live devices so I stopped AMS Servers in the system tray, closed out Spectrum Connects, and then restarted Spectrum Connects. After Connects was online I brought AMS Servers back up and then started AMS Device Manager. At this point, it reconnected to everything and seemed to be working fine.

As a point of interest, I occasionally have to rebuild the hierarchy in AMS Device Manager or even search for all devices to get it working. We’re currently on v 14.xx of AMS but I’m not sure about Spectrum Connects.