Hi Garett,
You can view the log file directly in DIAdem-SCRIPT, it's the bottom-most window with the gray background. I always have to scroll up a few lines to see the error, and usually there are two or three error events stored in the log file each time the DataPlugin fails to load. The last event, located at the bottom, almost always contains no useful information for DataPlugin debugging. You have to find the first event by scrolling up to find a reference to a line number in the DataPlugin which caused the error.
Also note that the DataPlugin will throw an error if it runs through just fine but does not load any data. In other words, if you are building up your DataPlugin step by step (as you should), and are just at the early stages where you parse a few items in the file and look at their values, you can easily forget to create at least 1 group or channel. If the DataPlugin does not create at least 1 group or channel when it runs through, it will throw an error that the data loading failed, when really there is no error in the DataPlugin beyond that it loaded nothing.
I like to output metadata values I'm parsing from the binary or header file as group properties when I'm building up the DataPlugin step by step, like this:
Set ThisGroup = Root.ChannelGroups.Add(ThisGroupName)
ThisGroup.Properties.Add MetaDataName, MetaDataValue
Then I can look at a long list of metadata values in the Data Portal, and I never forget to load at least 1 group or channel in order to avoid that pesky error that nothing was loaded by the DataPlugin. You can also do the same thing with channel properties, of course:
Set ThisChannel = ThisGroup.Channels.AddImplicitChannel(Name, 0, 1, 2, eI32)
ThisChannel.Properties.Add MetaDataName, MetaDataValue
Let us know if this doesn't help with your current issue,
Brad Turpin
DIAdem Product Support Engineer
National Instruments
