Resolving TIA Portal V13 SP1 Upgrade Error 0080:000030

Resolving TIA Portal V13 SP1 Upgrade Error 0080:000030

When an existing TIA Portal V13.0 project is opened for the first time in TIA Portal V13 SP1, the project upgrade wizard may abort with the error code 0080:000030 and the message that the project could not be converted. The dialog also exposes a hyperlink to the generated Conversion.xml log, which is the primary source for root-cause analysis. This reference documents the symptom, the log signature, the verified field workaround, and a set of supporting diagnostics that recover projects that look unrecoverable on first inspection.

1. Problem Description

The error appears immediately after selecting Upgrade project in TIA Portal V13 SP1 against a project that was last saved under TIA Portal V13.0. The wizard reports:

• Error code: 0080:000030
• Symptom: The upgrade is aborted before any device data is migrated. No PLC, HMI, or PC station is upgraded.
• Affected artifacts: Multi-device projects containing WinCC Comfort/Advanced, WinCC Professional (RT or ES), PC stations, or S7-1500/S7-1200 controllers referenced from an HMI tag or connection.
• Recoverable state: The original V13.0 project remains intact on disk; only the upgrade transaction is cancelled.

The error is non-deterministic with respect to hardware: it has been reproduced on projects with S7-1516, S7-1214, ET200SP, Comfort Panel TP700, and WinCC RT Advanced PC stations.

2. Root Cause

The root cause is identified by opening the Conversion.xml log file linked from the error dialog. The log file is typically written to:

Repeated unknown Config object type entries are the diagnostic fingerprint. A representative line is:

<Text>Core object HMI_RT_3 (Type=HmiApplicationData, Id={1052678-50156}) has unknown Config object type:
HMI\ScadaRt\PC_Device_1.0 [13.0.0.0].</Text>

The conversion engine cannot map a configuration object emitted by a V13.0 add-in or HMI sub-component into the V13 SP1 schema. Typical offenders include:

3. Prerequisites for the Workaround

1. A working installation of TIA Portal V13.0 on a separate machine or a bootable image. Do not attempt to install V13.0 and V13 SP1 side-by-side on the same operating system instance; the shared services will reject the older registration.
2. Read/write access to the project archive (.zap13) or folder.
3. A target machine with TIA Portal V13 SP1 installed and licensed.
4. Equal SIMATIC software packages installed on both sides. Mismatched option packages (e.g. Startdrive, F-CPU, S7-Graph) on the V13.0 side versus the V13 SP1 side is the single most common reason the workaround appears to fail.

4. Verified Workaround Procedure

The following procedure rebuilds a known-good topology in V13.0 so that the V13 SP1 upgrade succeeds. It is the only publicly confirmed manual procedure that bypasses 0080:000030 when the unknown object type is a WinCC PC station.

Step 1 - Open the failing project in TIA V13.0

1. Launch TIA Portal V13.0.
2. Open the original .ap13 project. Confirm that the project compiles cleanly in V13.0 before continuing. A pre-existing compile error will be carried forward and reported as a different upgrade error.

Step 2 - Create a fresh empty project in a second instance

1. Start a second TIA Portal V13.0 instance (Start > Siemens Automation > TIA Portal V13.0 with a different user profile if simultaneous instances on the same profile refuse to launch).
2. Create a new project with the same name and storage path as the target project on the V13 SP1 machine. This avoids renaming the project during the rebuild.

Step 3 - Select and copy the network topology

1. In the original project, open Devices & Networks.
2. Hold Ctrl and click each device: PLCs, HMIs, PC station, drives, and the connection line that represents the integrated PROFINET/IE subnet (typically labeled PN/IE_1).
3. Right-click > Copy.

Step 4 - Paste the topology into the new project

1. Switch to the empty project and open Devices & Networks.
2. Right-click on the network view canvas > Paste.
3. When prompted, accept all device renumbering and let the wizard create new device names with the same IP/subnet configuration as the original.

Step 5 - Compile, save, and close in V13.0

1. Select the new project root > Compile > Software (rebuild all).
2. Resolve any cross-reference warnings; these often indicate that HMI tag references or PLC data block addresses did not survive the copy operation.
3. Save the project as .zap13 archive.
4. Close both TIA Portal V13.0 instances.

Step 6 - Transfer the archive to the V13 SP1 machine

1. Copy the .zap13 to the V13 SP1 workstation.
2. Extract the project to a local SSD path. Avoid network shares during the upgrade; TIA V13 SP1's converter performs memory-mapped I/O on the project file that fails over SMB with a generic 0080 error masking the real cause.

Step 7 - Upgrade in V13 SP1 and recompile

1. Open the extracted project. V13 SP1 detects the V13.0 schema and offers the upgrade.
2. Confirm the upgrade. The conversion completes because the previously unknown HmiApplicationData and PC_Device_1.0 entries have been re-serialized by the V13.0 rebuild pass.
3. Select all devices > right-click > Compile > Software and hardware (rebuild all).
4. Re-download to the target controllers and HMIs.

5. Why the Workaround Works

Copying devices and the integrated connection line into a fresh V13.0 container forces the V13.0 serializer to re-emit the topology metadata. The original Conversion.xml failure referenced HMI\ScadaRt\PC_Device_1.0 [13.0.0.0]; the rebuilt container re-emits the same object with a canonical schema GUID that the V13 SP1 upgrade converter recognises. Manual deletion of the HMI does not trigger this canonical re-emission, which is why the simpler approach fails.

6. Verification Checklist

7. Related Siemens Error Codes in the Same Family

Engineers upgrading legacy TIA Portal projects should be familiar with the broader 0080 family and adjacent upgrade errors:

8. Preventive Measures

1. Pin the project schema. In V13.0, on Project tree > Properties > Project information, record the build number. Always upgrade within the same Service Pack first (V13 to V13 SP1, V13 SP1 to V13 SP2) to limit schema delta per step.
2. Re-serialize before upgrade. On V13.0, perform Project > Compile > Software (rebuild all) and Save as immediately before the archive is moved. This forces the canonical emission referenced in Section 5.
3. Document the option package set. Capture the exact option packages installed (Startdrive V13, F-CPU V13, S7-Graph V13) in a project README. The single largest source of cross-version upgrade failures is a missing option on the target machine.
4. Avoid in-place edits with mixed versions. If a colleague is still on V13.0, do not make HMI connection edits while the upgrade is in flight; mixed-version binaries can re-introduce the unknown object type signature.

9. Fallback Strategies

If the topology rebuild workaround fails, the following escalation paths are ordered by least invasive to most invasive:

1. Convert HMI to a stub. Add a placeholder TP700 Comfort to the new V13.0 project, copy the topology, and let V13 SP1 retarget the HMI. Useful when the HMI database is the corruption vector.
2. Export the PLC program alone. Use Project > Export > TIA Portal project export to capture only the S7-1500/S7-1200 program blocks. Re-create the HMI configuration from the export and rebuild the integrated connection.
3. Repair the .ap13 archive. Manually unpack the .ap13 (a ZIP archive), edit the embedded Conversion.xml to remove orphan unknown Config object type lines, and repack. This is undocumented and unsupported, but has been used to recover projects where the V13.0 source is no longer available. Take a backup first.
4. Siemens Technical Support. Open a support request via the Siemens Industry Online Support portal and attach the Conversion.xml. Provide the build numbers of both TIA Portal installations.

10. Diagnostic Commands and Log Locations

To find every unknown Config object type line in a single pass:

11. Field-Proven Notes and Edge Cases

• The V13.0 and V13 SP1 install cannot coexist on the same Windows user profile. Use distinct local user accounts for the rebuild host and the V13 SP1 host.
• If the project uses a PC station with WinCC RT Professional, the PC_Device_1.0 reference in the log is the explicit failure marker. Removing only the SCADA runtime is insufficient; the PC station itself must be re-serialized through the topology copy described in Step 3-4.
• Integrated PN/IE_1 connections are preserved by the workaround because the connection line is copied along with the device nodes. Manual reconstruction of integrated connections after the upgrade does not recover the original Config object type serialization.
• Projects that have been round-tripped through V12 SP1 to V13 and back to V13 SP1 carry a higher probability of triggering 0080:000030. The workaround is identical; no additional steps are required.
• Always re-check the HMI tag database after the upgrade. The topology copy does not preserve the order of tag prefixes; the compile will succeed but the HMI may show swapped values at runtime if the prefix mapping is not verified.

12. Frequently Asked Questions