mxsxport.dll not found

[Steffen.Schmidt]

Hi,

when starting a TestStand Operator Interface or the Sequence Editor I sometimes have the following problem: mxsxport.dll not found!

This seems to be a dll belonging to MAX. I've already added the directory of this dll to the search directories but the failure still happens sometimes.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Steffen

P.S: I'm using Win2000 on one machine and Win XP on another, both have the problem. TS 3.1, MAX 3.1.1, NI-DAQ 7.4

[Scott_Richardson]

Steffen -
Looking at our knowledge base, I do not see any reports of this type of error with TestStand or any other senario.

1. What OI are you using and what version of the development environment are you using?
2. If you are getting a dialog, can you post the dialog that is displaying the error?
3. Does the OI exit gracefully or does it just go away after the failure to load the DLL?
4. Have you edited the OI, and if so, do you make any MAX or DAQ calls in the OI?

As a debug tool and not necessarily a final fix, is the problem reproducible if you add the MAX directory to your PATH environment variable?

One option to give us more details as to who and why this is failing to find the DLL is to profile the loaded DLLs using a third party tool like Dependency Walker 2.1 which can be downloaded from http://www.stevemiller.net/apps/

You can basically open the EXE that is reporting the DLL error and look at its dependencies.  Then you can Select Profile>>Start Profiling and monitor the log windows to see what this may tell us when you can reproduce the error.  Depending on the settings, another child window in Depends will be created for the Version Selector executable that TestStand may launch, so make sure that you look at the appropriate child window for the OI.

[Steffen.Schmidt]

Hi Scott,

regarding your questions I can tell you the following:

1) I'm using a OI that was modified out of a simple OI shipped with TS. The development environment is CVI 7.1.

2) I attached the error message. Unfortunately it's in German because of German Win2K. But it says that the dll was not found in the listed directories.

3) The OI starts the sequence correctly but stops/hangs when it reaches the first step that uses DAQmx. The DAQmx functions are implemented in a CVI dll (dioclass.dll). I think that the error occurs when the TS Engine tries to load all necessary code modules because the error message pops up after the login screen of the TS Engine. I attach the section of the log window of dependency walker.

4) see #1 and #3 - there are no MAX or DAQ calls in the OI directly. Only my dioclass.dll which is called by TS steps uses DAQ.

I haven't tried to add MAX directory to PATH variable yet but I will do so soon. But I'm not sure if I can make a statement about it because the error is not really repeatable.

Regards

Steffen

[Scott_Richardson]

Steffan -
Was the trace that you supplied from Depends for a senerio that failed to load the DLL?  It looks like it found the DLL successfully.

[Steffen.Schmidt]

Hi Scott,

that's right, when I start the exe via Depends I can't force the failure...

Regards

Steffen

[Steffen.Schmidt]

Forgot another thing: Adding the MAX path to PATH environment variable doesn't improve anything, although the listed directories in the error message are the ones that are included in PATH env. var.

On the other machine (Windows XP) where I have the problem I get an error message a little different. See jpg.

It says that the application couldn't be started because mxsxport.dll could not be found and that the problem might be solved by a new installation of the application.

Do you think a new installation of MAX could solve the problem? Is there a download of the latest version?

Regards 

[Scott_Richardson]

Steffen -
I am surprised that adding the MAX directory to the path did not help. I did not see any jpg with your last posting, is there a different jpg for us to look at? 

I suspect that profiling the loading of DLLs is causing a timing change and this is preventing the problem from occurring.

By default Depends does have some profile options on that could slow things down.  Could you turn off the following and try it:

• Log GetProcAddress function calls
• Log debug output messages
• Automatically open and profile child processes

Then try to turn off the following and try again:

• Log DLLMain calls for process attach and process detach messages.

I do not see how reinstalling MAX would necessarily help, but I have seen cases where it does.

[Steffen.Schmidt]

Sorry Scott, I forgot to attach the jpg (happens from time to time...)

Unfortunately turning off the options you mentioned didn't make it possible to force the error to occur while profiling with Depends. I now have the situation that I can start the application directly without Depends and the error occurs and next time I start it with Depends and the error doesn't occur!

What I found out is, that the error never occurs the first time I start the application after having booted. In my TS sequence the last step is a Call Exe step to shutdown the system (shutdown.exe). When I abort this manually (call "shutdown -a" via dos prompt) and then close the OI, the error occurs when I then start the OI again. Is it possible that there is something left somewhere in memory that is not freed by the shutdown command or something like that?

Regards,

Steffen

[Steffen.Schmidt]

Scott -

forget what I wrote about the shutdown command. Even if I skip the shutdown step and the sequence ends regularly the error occurs when I load the application a second time after having closed the OI.

It's kind of strange...

Regards

[Scott_Richardson]

Steffen -

I would like to be able to solve this problem for you, but the forum is a slow medium.  Can you contact NI support and have them forward your contact information to me in R&D, specifically your email and phone number.  We can repost once we resolve the issue.