Trial of CVI 7.0 Seems to have caused problems with CVI 5.5 ("Failed Loading mesa.dll")

[testerguy]

We are using Labwindows/CVI 5.5. I recently tested a trial version of CVI 7.0. I never compiled any of our software with it -- just installed it and checked it out.

Now after compiling our software on CVI 5.5 we get the "Failed Loading Mesa.dll" message after installing and running our application on other computers. Some of the graphs act very weird also. And backgrading to an older version of our software on the non-compiled-on PC's, we get the same error. We don't get any "Evaluation Copy" printouts in our graphs. Even worse, running other NI applications that were previously installed on these other PC's (not the PC that the software was compiled on) gives us that same error messa
ge. It is acting like a virus 🙂

Even though we are not using Active X (to my knowledge), I tried copying an older version of cwui.ocx and cwui.dep to one of the "infected" computers to no evail...

I shouldn't have to include mesa.dll with our program when there was no need to before.

How do we fix this?

[bilalD]

Hello

CVI 7.0 would have upgraded the version of mesa.dll on your system. Check the C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\Mesa folder for the version of mesa.dll and copy over an older version of it to the machines reporting this issue. You might have an incorrect version of mesa.dll for the CVI RTE version.

The reason you dont have to explicitly distribute mesa is because it is part of the CVI runtime. So you're correct, you should not include it in your program . Just try installing CVI 5.5 on a clean machine, and then compare then versions of mesa and CVI RTE with the versions on the machines giving you the problem.

Just as an FYI, the CVI RTE consists of the following files

Run-Time Engine File Description
cvirte.dll Contains most LabWindow
s/CVI libraries
cviauto.dll Contains ActiveX Library
cvi95vxd.vxd Low-level support driver for Windows Me/98
cvintdrv.sys Low-level support driver for Windows 2000/NT/XP
msgrte.txt Contains text messages
cvirte.rsc Contains binary resources
ni7seg.ttf Font description file
nisystem.ttf Font description file
dataskt.dll LabWindows/CVI support DLL for the DataSocket Library
mesa.dll LabWindows/CVI support DLL for Lab-Style controls

This is found in CVI's programmers reference manual

I hope this helps

Bilal Durrani
NI

[testerguy]

Thanks for your answer and the list of info.

I hacked around on this and found that if I replace some system files with the same files from a system with only CVI 5.5 installed the problem is fixed. Of course I had to recompile my program so that the problem doesn't spread.

These are the files:
"C:\WINNT\system32\cvirt.dll"
"C:\WINNT\system32\cvirte.dll"
And Whole directory: "C:\WINNT\system32\cvirte"

I haven't found any other side effects from this, but did do the standard backup of files just-in-case. I'll back-grade my mesa.dll too, like you mention.

Thanks!

[bilalD]

The CVI RTE is designed to be fully backwards compatible (7.0 RTE will work with previous versions of CVI), so I am curious about where exactly you would get the mesa dll missing error. If you stepped through your application, did it happen at LoadPanel() or before main? Were there any changes that you made to the CVI 5.5 UIR when you opened it up using CVI 7?
Im curious to see what the conditions are to cause a problem like this.

Thanks

Bilal

[testerguy]

It looks like there was never a "mesa.dll" on any of my systems with only CVI 5.5. The only installed version of "mesa.dll" is in the CVI 7.0 specific shared directory.


To answer your question. The "Failed Loading Mesa.dll" would occur first on initial program start (I didn't do any program stepping when the issue was occuring). Then another "Failed Loading Mesa.dll" error would popup when a panel with a graph would open. The graphing starts as soon as the panel opens, so the error may not have occurred until the first graphing attempt.

During graphing (graph being composed of many individual points), it would try to draw with the proper shape but would be flashing and would end up blank (no points) when finished. I think the flashi
ng was it drawing one group of points then them dissapearing while the next group of points were drawn. I would never get the error popup again during that program session.

Hope that helps. If not let me know, I can re-create the situation and step through, just not this week.

Thanks