I am getting "This chassis has been identified but is not described in the pxisys.ini for this system." in MAX

[Andy Toth]

Issue, I am putting together a large PXI system which use a mix of PXI modules from multiple PXI vendors wanting to use LabVIEW.  Issue, when I use a Keithley KPXI-SYS-18-4602 chassis; I get "This chassis has been identified but is not described in the pxisys.ini for this system."  I look in the pxisys.ini and all I see the following entries for,

[Version]
Major = 2
Minor = 1

[PXI System]
ChassisList = ""

Is there way to manually enter the configurations or settings for missing descriptions?

I was told by NI Representative, that LabVIEW was open platform supporting all hardware vendors.  With many PXI hardware vendors coming out with host of new PXI modules, controllers and chassis in the next 5-10 years, it would be at best for NI to take more of lead making LabVIEW's MAX a true open standard and supporting vendors or giving the MAX documentation to do so.  Note, some of my asian customers are presuring me to go with Linux and using GNU and want to avoid any proprietary software for PXI.  I think for best interest of LabVIEW is to go open platform with MAX focus on increasing software sales and avoid low margin hardware sales in asia.

Can you help?

Andy 

[Andy Toth]

If your PXI system contains a third-party bridging solution, you must enable this option to see your third-party bridge as a bus. Once you enable this option, you can create a chassis from the bus and identify it. By default, this option is not enabled.

To show PXI buses, right-click your PXI system and select Show PXI Buses. You should now see all buses that MAX knows about in your PXI system.

[Andy Toth]

PXI Bus Basics

How do I use MAX with my PXI buses?

PXI buses represent the internal PCI-to-PCI bridge hierarchy for your PXI system. The configuration tree represents the buses, using information about which buses are subordinates of other buses. Any bus identified as a chassis (such as a chassis connected by National Instruments MXI bridging solutions) is now shown as a chassis, rather than a bus. You must identify third-party PCI-to-PCI bridges that connect to PXI chassis before configuring the chassis. You may see other PXI buses in your PXI system. These buses are PCI-to-PCI bridges internal to your computer or bridges on multifunction devices, and should not be identified as chassis.

What can I do at the PXI bus level?

You can identify your PXI bus as a chassis.

What do you want to do?

 Identify my PXI bus as a chassis

Right-click the PXI bus that represents your third-party PCI-to-PCI bridge to a chassis and select Identify as a PXI chassis

[Andy Toth]

Identifying a PXI Chassis Connected by a Third-Party Bridge

If your PXI system uses a third-party bridging solution, MAX cannot detect the presence of a PXI chassis automatically. To identify a PXI chassis connected by a third-party bridge, complete the following steps.

1. Right-click the PXI System node (such as PXI System (...)) and select Show PXI Buses. Every PXI/PCI bus should now be displayed underneath your PXI system.
2. Find the PXI bus node that represents the bus segment used for your PXI chassis backplane. If the missing PXI chassis spans multiple buses, select the bus that represents the first segment of that chassis backplane. Right-click the PXI bus and select Identify Bus as Chassis to create a new nonconfigured chassis for the PXI bus. Follow the procedures in Identifying a PXI Chassis to identify this new nonconfigured PXI chassis.

You can hide the PXI bus objects again by right-clicking the PXI System node and selecting Show PXI Buses to uncheck the option. By default, MAX does not show PXI buses in your PXI system.

[Andy Toth]

All, I found no way to make custom 3rd-party entries with-in MAX for third party hardware.  If some some has any information please assist.  MAX is a great tool for many users in the PXI community who wish to use it adn expand from it, unfortuately it is limited.  I hope that in 2008 will bring a software change for "open platform".

[LaurenLL]

Hi Andy,

We try to make our software as versatile as possible, in terms of interacting with third party hardware.  Even so, it is impossible for us to create specific files for every system that may interact with it.  If a third party chassis follows PXI specifications and includes the necessary ini files, then it should be able to interface with our software.

The Keithley chassis you are trying to detect should be able to communicate successfully.  My guess at this point is that the pxisys.ini file may have somehow become corrupted.  You may want to try removing this file and restarting the system.  In order to do this, navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\National Instruments\MAX\Data, and rename the Data file.  Then delete the pxisys.ini file in the Windows directory and restart the system.  Hopefully, after launching MAX, the chassis can be identified properly.

Keep me updated on everything, and we will try to do everything we can to make our software an open platform.

Regards,

Lauren L.

[Andy Toth]

Hi Lauren L.

Thank so much for the response.  I just was fustrated with MAX again.  I was able to edit the pxisys.in file and Keithley KPXI-SYS-18-460X2.ini and make the corrections all work.

Is there a way that NI can create a User's Manual or Refernce Manual on MAX for use with third party Instruments, PXI products and Daq products.

It could make it easier for system develpers like me to use LabVIEW.  In Custom System Development, my test rigs/stands are made of variety of hadware vendors and anything that can make LabVIEW Open Platform Friendly can help me and NI customers greatly.  MAX is a wonderful tool that could benefit LabVIEW Users that are trouble shooting third party of hardware. 

NI could market MAX as a product stand alone with devloper tools for Open Platform Friendly and generate another revenue stream.  Just a thougt.

Thank you again.

Andy

[LaurenLL]

Hi Andy,

You can file a product suggestion by selecting "feedback" in the Contact NI section of our website.  I will go ahead and make a suggestion myself, but I recommend that you file one as well.  We take customer feedback very seriously, so we like to know what you are looking for in our products.

Regards,

Lauren