8473 disappears from USB

[John_Gourlay]

We have an application of our product that uses two 8473 USB CAN devices as well as four cDAQ devices (9476, 9425, 9205, and 9263) to do automotive battery testing. After the fourth or fifth restart of our application one or both of the 8473s dissapear from the USB. Not only can't our application find them, NI MAX also can't find them. Rebooting the PC restores the 8473s, as does unplugging and replugging their USB cables.

The symptoms are identical to the ones described in the old posting in this forum "ncConfig Too Slow and Other Problems", 03-22-2008 02:46 AM. However, our interface to the CAN devices already uses the ncGetHardwareInfo approach that DirkW proposed to circumvent the problem. I'd also like to think that NI has fixed the underlying bug by now, after two and a half years. We think the problem has to do with the combination of CAN and cDAQ devices, because we haven't been able to reproduce it with just 8473s. The NI library interface to the cDAQ devices is not analogous to the CAN devices, so it's hard to see what we should look for and change in that side of our product. In a nutshell, we start a process for each cDAQ device, and the process gets some information about the device with calls to library functions like DAQmxGetDevSerialNum. Then the process starts one or two tasks with DAQmxStartTask, depending on the configuration of the device. We'd like some help resolving this problem.

Here is the system information as reported by NI-MAX:

Operating System(OS) Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS Version 5.01.2600
OS Info Service Pack 3
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz / x86 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10 / GenuineIntel / 2394 MHz
Number of Processors 2
Physical Memory 1.93 GB of RAM
Drive C:\ 25.8 GB of 48.8 GB free
Drive D:\ 168 GB of 184 GB free
 
National Instruments Software: Version:
 
NI-CAN 2.7.1f0
CVI 9.1.1
CVI AddOns LabWindows/CVI Shared AddOns
 Signal Processing Toolkit 7.0.2
 SQL Toolkit 2.2.0
CVI Run-Time 9.1.1.450
NI-DAQ 7.4.4f7
NI-DAQmx Device Driver 9.1.5f1
NI-DAQmx ADE Support 9.1.5
NI-DAQmx MAX Configuration 9.1.5
NI Script Editor 1.3.2
NI-DMM 3.0.3
 DMM Soft Front Panel 3.0.3
NI-FGEN 2.7.4
 FGEN Soft Front Panel 2.7
FieldPoint 6.0.7
 LabVIEW Interface 6.0.7
NI-488.2 Software 2.73
NI Vision 10.0.0
 Image Processing and Machine Vision 10.0.0.49152
 Services 10.0.0.49152
IVI Compliance Package 4.2
LabVIEW 10.0.0
 Internet Toolkit 10.0.0
 PID Control Toolkit 10.0.0
 Real-Time 10.0.0
 Real-Time Execution Trace Toolkit - LabVIEW Support 2.0.3
 Report Generation Toolkit For Microsoft Office 10.0.0
 VI Analyzer Toolkit 10.0.0
LabVIEW Run-Time 2010 10.0.0
Measurement & Automation Explorer 4.7.0f4
Measurement Studio Visual Studio 2005 Support - See individual versions below.
 DotNET
 Common 8.9.20.302
 Vision 10.0.20.100
 Vision.Common 10.0.20.100
Measurement Studio Visual Studio 2008 Support - See individual versions below.
 DotNET
 Common 8.9.35.302
 Common (64-bit) 8.9.35.302
 Vision 10.0.35.100
 Vision.Common 10.0.35.100
NI-USI 1.8.0.4177
NI-DCPower 1.4.1
 NI-DCPower Soft Front Panel 1.4
NI-HSDIO 1.7.3.1
NI-HWS 1.4.8
NI-IMAQdx 3.7.0
NI PXI Platform Services 2.5.6
NI-RFSA 2.3.2
 NI-RFSA Soft Front Panel 2.3
NI-RFSG 1.6.4
NI-RIO 3.5.0
 CompactRIO 3.5.0
 CompactRIO Module Software 3.5.0
 FlexRIO 1.5.0
 R Series Intelligent DAQ 3.5.0
NI-Sync 3.2.1
NI-XNET 1.1.1f2
NI-PAL Software 2.5.4
NI-SCOPE 3.6.2f1
 SCOPE Soft Front Panel 3.0.0
NI-Serial Software 3.6.0
LabVIEW SignalExpress 4.0
NI Spy 2.7.2.49152
NI-SWITCH 4.0.2f1
 Soft Front Panel 4.0.2.49153
NI System Configuration 1.1.0f3
NI-TClk 1.8.1
NI-VISA 5.0
 NiVisaServer.exe 5.0.0.49152
 NIvisaic.exe 5.0.0.49152
NI-VISA Runtime 5.0
Vision Builder AI 4.0.1
LabVIEW Run-Time 8.0.1 8.0.1
LabVIEW Run-Time 8.2.1 8.2.1
LabVIEW Run-Time 8.5.1 8.5.1
LabVIEW Run-Time 8.6.1 8.6.1
LabVIEW Run-Time 2009 SP1 9.0.1

[labviewman]

I see the USB-8473 dropping out even when doing nothing (i.e. some time after the computer boots-up, 'USB' LED switches off and can't communicate wit it), but I suspect, at least in my case, it is beacuse I have 3 of these devices connected to a powered USB 2.0 hub.  I have used them in this configuration, but I usually have them connected to their own USB port and never had a problem.

Are you using a USB hub or is each device plugged into it's own USB port?

Todd

[John_Gourlay]

In our case the USB LED stays on, as was the case in the earlier report.  The problem occurs for us whether the 8473 is plugged into a hub or plugged directly into a USB port on the PC.  We've checked the power requirements, and we believe we're not exceeding any.

[ChrisBurg]

I know this is an old post, but I am seeing a similiar problem when using USB to a MODBUS device.  The port that appears once the device is powered will randomly disappear from windows and MAX.  The only way to fix it is to disconnect and reconnect the USB port.  Did you ever find a solution to this issue? (LV 2010 SP1, MODBUS lib 1.2.1, NI_VISA 5.0.3, NI-Serial 3.7.0)

[Austin_S]

Hi Chris,

This previous issue was brought to the attention of our R&D team to be addressed in a later version of our NI-CAN driver.  This has been documented in CAR #282965.

Which USB-MODBUS device are you using?  Also, if I understand your post correctly, this device is disappearing from Device Manager as well?

[Bachelorand]

Hi there,

my problem is a little diferent but is seems to fit here as well.

Installed a NI USB-8473 in my Windos 7 System with Labview 2009.
Successful except the fact that there is no "vi" in the Labview-library.
Now i realized that Labview 2009 is not supportet in NI-CAN 2.7.5 Driver software.
I'd like to downgrade to NI-CAN 2.7.4 but it's not possible because of the newer installed version.
I don't find a option to deinstall this driver version.

Anybody an idea?

Greetings.