Instrument I/O assistant doesn't show terminals

[Offramp68]

Hello, I tried to use the I/O assistant to acquire some waveforms from a Tektronix TDS 2012 oscilloscope. Everything seems to work fine since I can see the curve when I query and parse the instrument. The problem is that once I click on "OK" the I/O assistant DOESN'T SHOW ANY TERMINAL to connect in my block diagram. The strange thing is that I donwloaded a working example from NI.com, and at first the terminal are visible, but as soon as I edit something inside the assistant (i.e. simply change the name of a token) the terminals on the I/O assistant icon change to "invalid input" and then disappears!!! I'm becoming crazy!!!!

[TommyTestBoy]

It sounds like the I/O Assistant is failing to generate code onto the block diagram. Try dropping a new I/O Assistant Express block on your diagram (under the Instrument I/O palette), configuring it the same way as the one in the example, and press OK. Does the same thing happen?

[Offramp68]

Yes Tommy I tried all the following things:

1. Repeated the same procedure on a different PC (a notebook with a fresh installation, WinXP)
2. Opened a blank VI, put the I/O assistant alone, repeated the procedure
3. Open the template "Read and acquire", repeated the procedure

In all the cases, no terminals appeared

I definitely agree with you. My LabView is failing in the final generation code stage. I cannot understand if there is a problem in the way I prepare the procedure (but I don't think since everyhting works fine, including when I parse the data) or a problem in the LabView installation (maybe I excluded unintentionally some essential piece of the program?)

If this can help, I noticed that when I select the I/O assistant and set the
"Select Instrument" port and timeout, the lateral option "code generation type" is not active, while in the flash tutorial in the NI site I saw that there it should be active

Thank you for your help though

[TommyTestBoy]

It sounds like a problem with the installation - perhaps the templates used to create the generated code did not get installed properly. Can you tell me which version of the Instrument I/O Assistant you have installed? You can do this by looking in the \MAX\Assistants\ directory and looking at the properties IIOA.mxw. It should be either version 1.0 or 1.0.1.

If you have version 1.0 - look in the same Assistants directory and see if there is a file named IOScriptor.LLB.
If you have version 1.0.1, look in your \vi.lib\ directory and see if there is a InstrIOAsst directory with an LLB named IIOA.LLB. (The name and location of this LLB changed between these two releases) These are the VI templates used
to generate the code behind the Express VI - I am assuming you are probably missing this LLB.

Also - to answer your question about the "Code generation type" option - it is only active when VISA knows the currently selected instrument is available over the GPIB bus. If it is not connected over GPIB or if the resource name is invalid than GPIB code generation is not an option. This is probably why the option is invalid.

[Offramp68]

This morning I removed all the software, cleaned the register and re-installed LabView (FULL installation even though I don't need it!)

Tried again with the I/O assistant: no way. I have always the same problem.

My IIOA.mxw version is 3.0.0.3015

Please look at the screenshot of my \labview\MAX\assistants directory. There is no sign of IIOA.llb

Thanks

Massimiliano

[TommyTestBoy]

The Instrument I/O Assistant and its necessary files are installed by the Driver CD - not the LabVIEW installer CD. Did you reinstall the drivers from the Driver CD when you did the LabVIEW re-installation?

I would like to reproduce this issue you are seeing - It looks like you installed LV 7.0 into the "C:\labview" directory, and then installed the driver CD into the same directory? Do have any other NI products installed? Also, which operating system are you on?

Thank you for your help in fixing this problem.

-Tommy

[Offramp68]

Operating System: Windows 2000 5.0.2195 Service Pack 4

I installed everything and the installer asked me for two discs (including the Drivers CD)

My working directory is D:\labview (C:\ was too much full)

I don't have any other NI software

[TommyTestBoy]

I tried to reproduce your problem but everything worked on my machine. When you ran the Driver CD after installing LabVIEW - did you do a typical install (which would install DAQ)? Or did you deselect DAQ and only install Instrument Control pieces?

[TommyTestBoy]

I'm sorry - I could tell from your screen shot of your MAX Assistants directory that you do have DAQ installed. So please disregard my previous response. The reason I asked if DAQ was installed is because DAQ and Instrument I/O Assistant share some common components. It looks like those common components are most likely installed.

Can you check in D:\labview\MAX\Assistants\LVCGen and confirm you have a "LV70" directory in there?

If this is not the problem then I am really baffled, and all I know to do is have you zip up your d:\labview directory and email it to me so I can look at all the files that are installed.

[Offramp68]

Dear Tommy

I'm happy to inform that I finally solved the problem.
I have to thanks Mr. Massimiliano Dotti, Field Application Engineer of NI.
It's a quite annoying bug of the program. If your "Local Region" control panel of Windows is set for a language different than English (it was Italian in my case) the assistant won't work properly.

Don't ask me why!

I hope that NI will post soon a technical note. I'm sure that lot of italian people lost time and good mood with this problem.

Anyway Tommy, thank you very much for your kind support.I really appreciated it

Massimiliano