Weird LabVIEW... VI is Editable In Run Time

[Shazlan]

Hi all,

I'm experiencing a weird LabVIEW behaviour. I have developed a program for my client and just this morning, I sent them the updated VI's (along with all the subVIs, LabVIEW project, etc.) in a zip file. When they unzip and run the program, LabVIEW is acting weird - when all these while, things are working fine (fine as in as expected). Here's what happened.

In the program, I have the toolbar, menu bar and the title bar to be hidden. Image 2.png is referred. When we hit the run button, all those bars became hidden, as expected it should be but this time only for a second or two and then they reappear. To make it weirder, the run button on the toolbar became 'white' as if the program is not running. However, there are some indicators on the HMI to show that the program is running. For example, the clock on the lower right corner of the GUI is ticking and the status bar did give an update to say something happen. On the other hand, the buttons on the HMI is editable - you can actually change the size, words, etc and if you press the buttons, it acts as if you want to edit it instead of operating it. So, we can't really use the program.

When we inspect the Block Diagram, the toolbar shows as if it is not running - the run arrow is white. However, when we press the highlight execution button, we can see the flow of the program. 1.png is a snapshot of what we see. While the execution is being highlighted and goes across the state machine, we could change the size of the structures, edit the enum constants, etc. In addition to all these, we changed a value on the "RT Error" Shared Variable. What the program will do is basically, read this value, updates the status bar on the front panel and reset the value back to zero... and the program behaves as it should be. So this in a way tells us that the program (front panel and block diagram) is working. All these are cool but if I can't use the buttons on the HMI, the program is rendered useless.

I've done LabVIEW for 9 years now, this is my first time seeing this phenomenon. Can anybody please explain what's going on here???

Help is very much appreciated!

Shazlan

[Yamaeda]

I'm impressed and surprised! Cool, if unlucky, effect! 🙂

/Y

[Intaris]

I've seen somethng similar several times.

I've given up reporting things which just can't be easily reproduced.

[Thoric]

Unlike Intaris I've never seen this before, and I've been using LabVIEW for a long time. Which version of LabVIEW are you using?

[Shazlan]

Well... In my case, it works well in my PC but not seems to be the case in the deployment PC... It is easily reproducable, as I'm having this problem right now and consistently... When you got this issue last time, how did you fix it?

Some findings after some test are, the problem seems to stay there when I run the main VI from LabVIEW project. If I run the main VI on its own, it works perfectly fine - fine, means that as how it should. I couldn't run without the project though since I'm using Shared Variables... and to change that to dynamic SV will be a little too much. I've tested dumping the old project and recreate a new one, the problem still persists.

Any advice???

[Shazlan]

LabVIEW 2012...

The interesting thing is that, it was working well last week. I did the development in my laptop and then, transfer the VIs to the deployment PC... and it worked. Now, since I'm far from the deployment PC, I could only send the VIs over via email - the VIs are zipped. I've done this approach for quite some time already and this is the first one seeing this behaviour. Any idea?

[Intaris]

I've only seen it in LV 2012 (SP1).

I don't recall ever seeing it before we upgraded to LV 2012.

[JÞB]

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@Shazlan wrote:

Some findings after some test are, the problem seems to stay there when I run the main VI from LabVIEW project. If I run the main VI on its own, it works perfectly fine

Any advice???

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Lets clarify this just a bit.

You have a project,  it has a application build spec (I assume) and you used the project explorer to create a zip file?  of what? (since build outputs are not included in project zips) How are the build outputs deployed?

When you say "Run from the project" what do you mean?  Do you select the VI or the EXE and right-click "Run?"

[Intaris]

I've seen a collection of weird behaviour in the newer LV versions.  Some are perhaps due to my ways of using LV changing but there seem to be a number of "really weird" behavioural issues and this is definitely one I've come across, although it went away on its own and I could not reproduce it.  All of my work is project-based and my anecdotal evidence would suggest it's a problem with reserving VIs for use between application instances (between projects).

[Shazlan]

Hi Jeff, 

I didn't zip the file using the Application Builder. I just went to Windows Explorer and zip it. Also, when I say I ran it from LabVIEW project, what I meant is that I opened the main VI from LabVIEW project and run it - This is instead of opening the VI directly without going or loading LabVIEW project first.