PXI System does not appear in MAX 4.0

[Bassett_Hound]

Hi Ron,

After investigating further I found that after MAX 4.0 is installed it does cause the behavior where the PXI device disappears.  I was curious if you could point me to the discussion fourm that instructed  you to install the NI VISA 3.4.1 drivers.  It may be possible we could work around the issue using the older 3.x VISA drivers. 

NI-VISA 3.x  drivers allow you to configure the wire mode through a property node. In your application, you can place a Property Node on the block diagram. Right-click on the Property Node and change the Select Class to VISA»I/O Session»Instr. Then, you can Left-Click on the Property Node and select Serial Settings»Wire Mode. This will allow you to set or get the wire mode for a particular port. In addition, this allows you to have different wire modes for different ports.  Hopefully this will allow you to change the Wire Mode settings without having to change the NI-RT.ini file.

Regards,

Steven B.

[RonC]

Hi Steven,

Here is the link to the thread I mentioned:

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=140&message.id=12580&requireLogin=False

It is recommending "at least 3.3", so I simply got the latest (3.4.1).  Thanks for the tip using property nodes, I did stumble across that when using VISA 3.4.1, but I did not realize this went as far back as 3.x.

Just today I had another problem.  PXI did not start up cleanly, I may have caused that while trying to target PXI from LabVIEW RT, while PXI was just starting up.  Would not boot after that so I reformatted PXI hard drive. But then I cannot install software. I did successfully install software after logging on as another user,  but PXI system does not show up in MAX, and PXI cannot be targeted from LabVIEW to complete the configuration. 

MAX reports network error 12163, but I cannot find what this means, anywhere.  Do you know, by any chance?

Thanks,

RonC

[Bassett_Hound]

I have not come across that error before but I found a Knowledge Base document on the NI website that may help you out.
 
KB 31034ADX: Error 12163 While Trying to Download Software to a Real Time Target

Basically it looks like this is caused by an ActiveX dependancy between Internet Explorer and object used in Measurement and Automation Explorer to download the software or might be an issue with a firewall blocking ports

[RonC]

Thank you, Steven.  I feel pretty stupid -- I searched for that error in Knowledgebase, in fact in all of Support, and nothing turned up. I tried again just now, with the same result.  Search behavior seems a bit odd, but I can't recall what happened before. I select KnowledgeBase, search for "12163", and no results are returned, and the search area switches to "Support".

Anyway, that was the problem.  I had created a new user, and Internet Explorer was not configured, and I guess by default in Offline mode.  I had an additional problem with NI-Serial RT installation; this required removing the PXI serial boards, configuring the PXI chassis and installing software without the boards, then re-installing the boards and once again completely reconfiguring the chassis and installing software.  This problem may have initially been caused by having worm protection enabled, I am not sure.  Worm and virus protection was disabled during the final, successful, installation.

I have added the use of Property Nodes to configure the RS-485 wire mode, and initial testing indicates all is working, with the "original", i.e. pre-upgrade to NI-VISA 3.4.1 and NI-Serial 2.5.5.  Current configuration is LabVIEW RT 7.0.0, NI-VISA 3.0.1 and NI-Serial RT 2.5.3.  I am satisfied this configuration is meeting the needs of the application, and do not plan to re-attempt the NI-VISA upgrade right now.

If you continue to be curious, and find more about the possible LabVIEW 7.0 & MAX 4.0 conflict, then I would be also interested to know.  But please do not invest any additional effort on my behalf.  Once again, thank you for your persistent efforts, and I am very grateful for the information you have provided to me.

Best regards,

RonC

[Bassett_Hound]

Thats great Ron.  I'm still a little curious about the MAX 4.0 issue so I'll try to post again if I do find anything new out.  Glad to see your back up and running again and can get back to the real fun of programming. 

Regards,

Steven B.