PI Vision display recovery
How to Recover a PI Vision Display After a Bad Change or Deletion
When an upgrade or maintenance edit leaves an operational display broken—or someone deletes it—the priority is getting the last known good display back. This guide shows the recovery workflow in Vision Audit+.
Before you begin
This procedure applies when a PI Vision display still exists but no longer works as intended, or when it has been deleted. It assumes that Vision Audit+ was already tracking the display before the incident.
Prerequisites
- A captured version from before the unwanted change or deletion.
- Access to the display history in the Vision Audit+ PI Vision extension.
- Permission to revert an existing display or restore a deleted one.
- A user who can test the recovered display in its normal operational context.
1. Stop editing and confirm what failed
Stop making further changes to the affected display. Additional saves create more versions and make it harder to isolate the moment the display stopped working.
Open the display as a normal user and identify the failure you need to reverse: missing symbols, broken navigation, the wrong asset or time context, an unwanted layout change, or a display that no longer appears at all. Note the approximate time of the last known successful use.
2. Find the last known good version
Open the Vision Audit+ display history and locate the changes around the time the problem appeared. Check the display name, user, timestamp, event type, and affected objects so you do not recover the wrong display or an already broken version.
Select the newest captured version that predates the unwanted change. When several saves occurred close together, compare the affected objects and change details rather than choosing a version from its timestamp alone.
3. Revert a display that still exists
With the last known good version selected, use the Vision Audit+ revert action. Vision Audit+ returns the display to that captured state instead of requiring you to rebuild the previous layout manually.
Wait for the revert to complete, then reopen the display. Do not resume the failed maintenance change yet; first confirm that the selected version restored the expected layout and behavior.
4. Restore a display that was deleted
If the display no longer exists, open the Vision Audit+ recovery view and find it by its recorded identity. Confirm that the deletion event and captured display belong to the missing operational display, then use the restore action.
Current Vision Audit+ releases can restore the deleted display together with its associated thumbnail and identity information when that content was captured. Reopen the recovered display from PI Vision before treating the incident as resolved.
5. Test the recovered display as an operator
Open the recovered display with a representative user account and use it as an operator would. A successful restore is more than a page that loads: the display must show the right context and support the interactions people depend on.
Recovery check
- The display opens under its expected name and location.
- Critical values, trends, custom symbols, and multi-state behavior render correctly.
- Asset context, time range, navigation links, and write actions work as expected.
- The display history records the revert or restore event.
If a critical check still fails, return to the history and evaluate the next earlier known good version. Do not repair the recovered display with a new series of unplanned edits.
6. Make the next recovery possible
After the display works again, check how Vision Audit+ captures future versions. Administrators can use snapshots on every save, intelligent snapshots after editing inactivity, daily summaries, or manual snapshots. The right strategy should leave enough useful versions without creating an unreadable history.
Before the next upgrade or maintenance window, confirm that the target display has a recent known good version and that the people expected to recover it have the required permissions. If required save reasons are enabled, use a concise reason that identifies the intended change; this makes the next incident easier to isolate.
| What happened | Recovery action | Stop condition |
|---|---|---|
| The display exists but a change broke it. | Select the last known good captured version and revert. | No known good captured version or no revert permission. |
| The display was deleted. | Find the deleted display in the recovery view and restore it. | The display content was not captured or the user lacks restore permission. |
| The recovered version still fails operator checks. | Evaluate the next earlier known good version and repeat the recovery check. | No captured version passes the required operational checks. |
| No recoverable Vision Audit+ version exists. | Use the approved infrastructure backup or reconstruction process. | Do not continue selecting versions at random or make untracked production edits. |
Troubleshooting
What Vision Audit+ recovery cannot replace
Vision Audit+ can revert or restore content that its configured history captured. It does not replace PI Vision server backups, disaster recovery, or application-specific testing, and it cannot reconstruct a state that was never recorded.
