Can't remove non-existant instruments from NI-MAX

[Spiehler]

I'm having a problem of non-existent devices showing up in my Measurement & Automation Explorer:

I have a Windows 10 machine with NI-VISA 20.0 that was connected to a LAN with 3 GPIB-ENET/100 bridges, each of which had a variety of devices on it. Then I moved the computer to a different LAN, which has its own pair of GPIB-ENET/100 bridges with attached devices. When I open NI-MAX and expand "Devices and Interfaces" in the tree-view, it shows me the two new bridges (and their devices if I expand those tree-view items), but it also lists a bunch of devices on a non-existant "GPIB3" bus directly under the "Devices and Interfaces" item. I've tried Tools->Reset Configuration Data from the menu bar several times, and rebooted, but the phantom devices continue to show up.

When I rebooted the computer with the 2 Ethernet bridges turned off and open NI-MAX, the devices that used to be listed under the individual Ethernet bridges also show up directly under "Devices and Interfaces" with no apparent way to remove them.

[Frozen]

The image in this idea shows you how to remove old instruments.

[Spiehler]

Unfortunately the problem isn't related to remote systems, and the "delete disconnected systems" option is grayed out on my machine.

[Kyle97330 · Accepted solution]

Can you see if one of these files contains the systems you want gone:

C:\ProgramData\National Instruments\NIvisa\visaconf.ini

C:\ProgramData\National Instruments\NI-488.2\gpib.ini

If so, you may be able to just manually delete them from that INI file.   However, since you say that "Tools->Reset Configuration Data" doesn't get rid of them, they might just pop up again...

[billko]

Are you sure they aren't reachable?  Have you tried actually communicating with them, or is there an (x) on them?

[Spiehler]

That was pretty close. I ended up finding some "GPIB3" references in C:\ProgramData\National Instruments\NIVisa\visasrc.xml and "GPIB2" and "GPIB3" references in the gpib.ini file you mentioned. After I deleted the references and rebooted, MAX was no longer showing the ghost instruments, just the GPIB-ENET/100 bridges and real devices.