System and Method of Reporting Error Codes in an Electronically Controlled Device

• US 20080141076A1
• Filed: 04/08/2005
• Published: 06/12/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/08/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Hu, Luhui, Hasler, James E.
• Granted Patent: US 7,917,814 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/45
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/00 Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring error detection, correction or monitoring in information storage based on relative movement between record carrier and transducer G11B20/18; monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing G11B27/36; in static stores G11C29/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0733 in a data processing system embedded in an image processing device, e.g. printer, facsimile, scanner
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0736 in functional embedded systems, i.e. in a data processing system designed as a combination of hardware and software dedicated to performing a certain function testing or monitoring of automated control systems G05B23/02
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0772 Means for error signaling, e.g. using interrupts, exception flags, dedicated error registers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40

Abstract

A method of reporting errors in an electronically controlled device, comprises generating a first bit field representative of a severity of an internal error, generating a second bit field representative of a location of the internal error; and generating a third bit field representative of a cause of the internal error. The method also comprises structuring an internal error code, wherein the internal error code includes the first, second, and third bit fields.

Claims

1. A method of reporting errors in an electronically controlled device, comprising:

generating a first bit field representative of a severity of an internal error;

generating a second bit field representative of a location of the internal error;

generating a third bit field representative of a cause of the internal error;

structuring an internal error code, wherein the internal error code includes the first, second and third bit fields.

2. The method of reporting errors in an electronically controlled device in accordance with claim 1, wherein generating the second bit field comprises generating a plurality of component bit fields corresponding to at least one of a component, module, or index.

3. The method of reporting errors in an electronically controlled device in accordance with claim 2, wherein the plurality of component bit fields comprises a component bit field corresponding to the component, wherein the component bit field includes a number selected to identify the component by the lowest level of a hierarchical component topology.

4. The method of reporting errors in an electronically controlled device in accordance with claim 1, further comprising:

mapping the internal error code to a corresponding external error code, wherein the external error code includes a fourth bit field representative of a recovery action to be taken responsive to the internal error.

5. The method of reporting errors in an electronically controlled device in accordance with claim 4, wherein the external error code does not include the third bit field.

6. The method of reporting errors in an electronically controlled device in accordance with claim 4, wherein the internal error code and the external error code each include a fifth bit field representative of a type of error code, wherein the type of error code may be indicative of at least one of an internal error code or an external error code.

7. The method of reporting errors in an electronically controlled device in accordance with claim 4, further comprising:

storing the internal error code in memory in a first sub-system; and

communicating the external error code to a second sub-system, wherein the second sub-system comprises a master controller.

8. The method of reporting errors in an electronically controlled device in accordance with claim 7, further comprising:

mapping the external error code to a user action message; and

providing a visual display of the user action message.

9. A method of operating an electronically controlled device, comprising:

operating a first sub-system, wherein the first sub-system comprises a first controller;

diagnosing an internal error occurring within the first sub-system;

generating an internal error code, wherein the internal error code includes bit fields representative of a first set of information corresponding to the internal error;

mapping the internal error code to a corresponding external error code, wherein the external error code includes bit fields representative of a second set of information corresponding to the internal error;

wherein the first set of information includes at least some information which is not included in the second set of information.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the second set of information includes at least some information which is not included in the first set of information.

11. The method of operating an electronically controlled device in accordance with claim 9, wherein the first set of information includes information relating to a severity of the internal error, a component experiencing the internal error and a cause of the internal error, and wherein the second set of information includes information relating to the severity, the component and a recovery action to be taken responsive to the error.

12. The method of operating an electronically controlled device in accordance with claim 9, further comprising:

logging the internal error code in memory within the first sub-system;

communicating the external error code to a second sub-system, wherein the second sub-system comprises a master controller for the first and second sub-systems.

13. The method of claim 12, comprising logging the external error code in memory within the first sub-system.

14. The method of operating an electronically controlled device in accordance with claim 9, further comprising:

automatically taking action responsive to the internal error code, wherein the automatically taking action is performed, at least in part, by the first controller.

15. The method of operating an electronically controlled device in accordance with claim 12, further comprising:

parsing the external error code, wherein parsing the external error code is performed, at least in part, by the second controller; and

generating a user action message for display to a user.

16. A method of reporting errors in an electronically controlled device, comprising:

diagnosing an internal error;

generating an internal error code, wherein the internal error code represents information relating to a severity and a location of the error and an error identifier;

generating an external error code, wherein the external error code represents information relating to the severity of the internal error, to the location of the internal error and to a user action responsive to the internal error, wherein generating the user error code comprises selecting the user action from a pre-programmed list of user actions, wherein the error identifiers in the list of error identifiers have been mapped to corresponding user actions in the list of user actions;

logging the internal error code in an internal error code history; and

providing a visual representation of the user action.

17. An imaging device, comprising:

a general imaging application sub-system, wherein the imaging application sub-system comprises a controller for controlling the imaging application sub-system, sensors for sensing conditions indicative of a plurality of internal errors, and memory, wherein the memory includes software instructions for diagnosing the plurality of internal errors and includes software instructions for generating a an internal error code corresponding to an internal error and for generating an external error code responsive to the internal error, wherein the instructions for generating the external error code include mapping the internal error code to a suggested recovery action.

18. The imaging device, according to claim 17, further comprising a specific application sub-system connected to the general imaging application sub-system at least through a communications connection, wherein the imaging device communicates the external error code to the specific application sub-system through the communications connection and does not communicate the internal error code to the specific application sub-system.

19. An electronically controlled device comprising:

a first functional sub-system, wherein the first functional sub-system includes means for detecting an error in the first functional sub-system, means for generating an internal error code;

means for generating an external error code corresponding to the internal error code;

means for communicating the external error code to a second functional sub-system.

20. The electronically controlled device according to claim 19, comprising the second functional sub-system, wherein the second functional sub-system is arranged to receive the external error code from the means for communicating.

21. The electronically controlled device according to claim 19, wherein the internal error code includes information relating to the location, cause and severity of the error.

22. The electronically controlled device according to claim 19, wherein the external error code includes information relating to the location, recovery action and severity of the error.

23. The electronically controlled device according to claim 20, wherein the second sub-system comprises a means for mapping the external error code to a user recovery action.

24. An electronically controlled device, comprising:

a first sub-system;

a first controller for controlling the first sub-system;

a diagnostics unit for detecting internal errors in the first sub-system and generating an internal error code responsive to a detected internal error, wherein the first controller maps the internal error code to a corresponding external error code; and

a communications output arranged for communicating the external error code to a second sub-system.

25. The electronically controlled device of claim 24, further comprising:

a second sub-system;

a second controller for controlling the second sub-system, wherein the second controller comprises a master controller for the first sub-system;

a communications input, arranged for receiving the external error code from the first sub-system.

26. The electronically controlled device of claim 24, wherein the first sub-system comprises an imaging sub-system.

27. The electronically controlled device of claim 24, wherein the electronically controlled device comprises a printer and the first sub-system comprises an imaging sub-system.

28. The electronically controlled device of claim 24, wherein the internal error code comprises information relating to the severity, location and cause of the internal error and the external error code comprises information relating to the severity, location and recovery action.

29. An electronically controlled device, comprising:

a first sub-system, wherein the first sub-system comprises a first controller;

a computer readable medium comprising instructions for diagnosing an internal error occurring within the first sub-system, comprising instructions for generating an internal error code corresponding to the internal error, wherein the internal error code includes bit fields representative of a first set of information corresponding to the internal error, comprising instructions for mapping the internal error code to a corresponding external error code, wherein the external error code includes bit fields representative of a second set of information corresponding to the internal error, wherein the first set of information includes at least some information which is not included in the second set of information.

30. The electronically controlled device of claim 29, wherein the second set of information includes at least some information which is not included in the first set of information.

31. The electronically controlled device of claim 29, wherein the first set of information includes information relating to a severity of the internal error, a component experiencing the internal error and a cause of the internal error, and wherein the second set of information includes information relating to the severity, the component and a recovery action to be taken responsive to the error.

32. The electronically controlled device of claim 29, wherein the machine readable medium comprises instructions for logging the internal error code in memory within the first sub-system and for communicating the external error code to a second sub-system, wherein the second sub-system comprises a master controller for the first and second sub-systems.

33. The electronically controlled device of claim 32, wherein the instructions for logging comprise instructions for logging the external error code in memory within the first sub-system.

34. The electronically controlled device of claim 29, wherein the machine readable medium comprises instructions for having the controller automatically take action responsive to the internal error code.

35. The electronically controlled device of claim 32, wherein the second sub-system comprises a machine readable medium comprising instructions for parsing the external error code and generating a user action message for display to a user.

36. A method of operating an electronically controlled device, comprising:

handling and managing errors, wherein handling and managing errors comprises detecting errors in a first sub-system, generating internal error codes corresponding to the errors and mapping the internal error codes to corresponding external error codes,

diagnosing and troubleshooting the errors, wherein diagnosing and troubleshooting comprises arranging the first sub-system to automatically take action responsive to some of the errors;

controlling the system state of at least the first sub-system responsive to the internal error code;

logging the internal error codes and the external error codes in an error code history log;

controlling the electronically controlled device, wherein controlling the electronically controlled device comprises having a master controller in a second sub-system periodically poll the first sub-system and having the master controller take appropriate action responsive to an external error code provided by the first sub-system.

37. The method of operating an electronically controlled device according to claim 36, further comprising analyzing the error code history log for use in warranty service and/or planning.

38. A processor-readable medium having processor-executable instructions therein which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

generate a first bit field representative of a severity of an internal error;

generate a second bit field representative of a location of the internal error;

generate a third bit field representative of a cause of the internal error;

structure an internal error code, wherein the internal error code includes the first, second and third bit fields.

39. The medium of claim 38, having processor-executable instructions therein which, when executed by a processor, further cause the processor to:

map the internal error code to a corresponding external error code, wherein the external error code includes a fourth bit field representative of a recovery action to be taken responsive to the internal error.