NI IO Trace 17.0 export to Textfile and aquistion of 1024 or more bytes at once does not work

[marcuskr]

Hi.

I use NI IO Trace that comes with NI-VISA 17 to log comports. The logging is incomplete if I try to log directly to text file and the export to textfile does not work, if I logged it in the .nitrace format.

Furthermore, if I read for example 1024 bytes at once in LabView, NI IO Trace hangs and crashes.

These case are work with NI IO Trace 16, but unfortunately I cannot installed in parallel?

BR

Marcus

[EricBehrs]

Marcus, I have reproduced this issue (at least the crash part- when transferring >1k of data).  I started a support request with NI and they are looking into it, although as of yet they say they cannot reproduce it.  I am recommending to folks I work with to stay at IO Trace 16.0 until this is resolved.

One thing I learned about the problem as I have gone through the debugging/reporting process to NI is that it is only an issue if you have the Large Buffer option selected for the Buffer Limit per Parameter setting.  Set this to Small Buffer and the crash will not happen.  There are some other manifestations of the problem, such as trying to load a capture file (for instance, one captured successfully in v16, then loading it in v17) that contains large buffer transfers.

[EricBehrs]

Marcus-

Regarding your question about "installing multiple versions in parallel":

No, you can't do that.  But- it is easy enough to downgrade just IO Trace, without doing that for all your NI tools.  Run the National Instruments Software Uninstaller from Windows.  You will see NI I/O Trace 17.0 in the list.  Select it (and only it) and then click Remove Selected.  Then, you can run the NI-VISA 16.0 Installer (or NI-488.2 16.0) with default settings (don't worry about unselecting anything).  The Installer will see that you have higher versions of NI-488.2, MAX, NI-VISA and leave them alone.  All it will install is your now missing IO Trace 16.0, and thus you have downgraded just that tool.

Also following up on the problem description, the buffer limit is less than 1k.  I have LabVIEW test programs I am using that do both the data write (using a TCP server) and read (using standard VISA calls) and sends a variable number of bytes, and the limit seems to be somewhere between 400 and 500 bytes.  Also I have reproduced the problem transferring data from non-LabVIEW software (calling NI-VISA calls in C++), and also with the native GPIB API.  So- it's not specific to LabVIEW and not specific to VISA.  The common denominator is NI IO Trace (after all it is the app that is crashing).

[marcuskr]

Hi Eric.

Thanks for the investigation an the hints. I also reported this to NI and they also cannot reproduce it. My temporary solution was to decrease the buffersize.

So hopefully NI find a solution for this.

BR

Marcus

[marcuskr]

After my first quick try outs it seems that with the new I/O Trace 17.0.1 (delivered with NI VISA 17.5) can now log readings up to 64kB.

[EricBehrs]

Yes I have seen the same thing.  NI IO Trace 17.0.1 appears to have the fix.  As of today I think there are two installers that will provide the update- NI VISA 17.5 and NI System Configuration 17.5.  I assume it will also be included with NI-488.2 once it updates higher than 17.