Blind cRIO project upgrade: 8.2.1 to 2011 problems

[SigRob]

Hello,

I have been working on an old cRIO project of ours, a cRIO project originially written in 8.0, and targeted to a cRIO-9004 on a 9104 chassis.  It contains several network-published shared variables to talk to a host VI, so I was interesting in upgrading some versions of LabVIEW (away from 8.0) to help the performance of these shared variables.  I upgraded to 8.2.1 immediately and had little to no problems.

After attending NIWeek, with all the talk of stability improvements and bug fixes, etc.  I figured I would do a leap of an upgrade from 8.2.1 to 2011.  I had no problems getting the code upgraded, or so I thought.

I started writing more code, using the new 2011 features without issue.  However, when I went to test/debug these additions, I found that it seemed the code I had just written was not being used on the target?  I could see the execution trace through my VI's (with trace execution on) and skip over anything new I had added.  I cleaned the new cache feature out multiple times, restarted LabVIEW, mass re-compiled, did everything I could think of to get it to recognize my changes and deploy them with no avail.   Also, I could put probes down, some would actually populate, and some would still show that they

had not been executed even though they both should have been executed at the same time. (on parallel lines)

Since, I have reverted back to 8.2.1 and I was able to implement the same changes without any problem.  Maybe I should take smaller upgrade steps?  Does anyone have some feedback for me on this?

Thanks.

[Samuel_S]

Hello SigRob,

One thing I would try to do is to open the code that was written in 8.2.1 in 2011 and save it, then try running just the 2011 version of the code so see if there are any issues in the upgrade. For instances many times the property nodes need to be deleted and replaced for them to work. Once the updated code is functioning then I would start to augment the code with the new additions.

Smaller upgrade steps are also encouraged as well. 🙂

[SigRob]

Yes, I did that at first.  I upgraded the existing (working) code without a problem.  Yes, there were a few places i needed to replace the property nodes and clusters, but it wasn't hard.  Then, I deployed it to my target, and it ran fine.

I only experienced problems after I started to edit my upgraded, working code in LabVIEW 2011.  My edits would not apply to the target.

Furthermore,  I have now downgraded to LabVIEW 2010 SP1 and I do not have this issue.  Although, another issue has cropped up.  I'm not able to run the FPGA VI Interactively whilst also running my RT VI.  If i Run the RT VI first, the FPGA VI tells me that it is already in use.  If i start the FPGA VI first, then the RT vi cannot and does not connect to the FPGA VI.  I am certain i was able to do this in 8.2.1, and also in my debugging of my 2011 problem.

[Samuel_S]

Have you tried usding the Real-Time Execution trace toolkit? If you have it installed it might show why the resources appear to be allocated on the Real-Time side with the FPGA

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/6447

Are you able to make a new LabVIEW project, and run 2011 code on the target without any issues? Including using the Real-Time and FPGA moduless?

[SigRob]

I have never tried using the execution trace toolkit, I might give it a try to see how it works.  Here is the exact error I get when trying to run my RT app while running the FPGA in interactive mode:

Error -61203 occurred at niLvFpga_Open_cRIO-9104.vi
Possible reason(s):
LabVIEW FPGA:  The operation could not be performed because the FPGA is busy operating in Interactive mode. Stop all activities on the FPGA before requesting this operation.

Again, this error is basically saying that I can't run the FPGA vi in interactive mode while also running my RT app?  I was definitely able to do this in 8.2.1, and in 2011 as well.  Why is 2010 so different?

[Che_T.]

Hi SigRob,

This error occurs whenever we point the debugger to the FPGA bitfile rather than the FPGA VI.  To resolve this, point the debugger to the FPGA VI instead.

I'm concerned about what you're seeing in LV 2011.  It is odd that any new code that you're adding is being skipped over.  With that being said, are you able to create a new project from scratch and see that it executes any real time code and any FPGA operations?

Regards,