LabVIEW in a VMWare Virtual Machine frequently has long pauses

[cgibson]

Hi Folks,

I was wondering if anyone else had run into this problem and knew a solution. I run LabVIEW in VMWare VMs to keep the different versions separate. Frequently in the VM, interacting with LabVIEW causes the IDE to lock up for a while. When it does come back, it sometimes switches to a different VI if you have many open, which I tend to.

For projects with only a few VIs this is tolerable, but in other projects with many VIs, this becomes a major bottleneck. It seems worse when you go to open a VI, but other actions cause it as well.

The VM isn't locked up, just the LabVIEW IDE.

Do you have a similar problem? Any fix?

Thanks!

[tyk007]

Which VMWare product are you using? Host OS? Client OS and bitness? How have you configured the VM reserved memory settings?

[Kevin_Price]

FWIW, I've had this kind of thing happen occasionally in regular Windows environments, non-VM.  Under both Win 7 and 10, both LV 2016 and 2018.

Usually, I'm just trying to select or right-click something, I get 10-20 seconds worth of spinning hourglass (or equivalent), then all my LabVIEW windows rearrange their order so that the one I was working in has receded to the background and something else is on top an active.

Sorry, no solution.  I've just lived with it since it probably only happens two or three times a month.

-Kevin P

[cgibson]

Hmm, so maybe it is a LabVIEW thing made worse by running in a VM. I definitely get this behavior more frequently.

[cgibson]

You asked:

Which VMWare product are you using? Host OS? Client OS and bitness? How have you configured the VM reserved memory settings?

VMWare Player 4.0.6

Host: Windows 10 64 bit, Client Window 7 64 bit

The VM is given 4 GB.

[Bob_Schor]

It did sound like memory to me.  I've not seen this, but tend to run VMs with at least 8 GB of memory, several cores, and (if running LabVIEW) at least 80 GB of dedicated disk space.  I've done LabVIEW coding in this environment, including building FPGAs using a "local" compiler (it does run about 20% slower ...).

Bob Schor

[tyk007 · Accepted solution]

What addons / toolkits do you have installed? I'm specifically thinking of any VI Packages that use the Project Provider Framework since if they perform poorly it impacts the IDE experience, especially in the Project Window or when right-clicking.

4Gb / 4 cores is often sufficient for basic development without any of the memory-hungry toolkits; 8Gb is better. When I was talking memory reservation I was thinking of a VMWare WorkStation setting that defines how the host allocates memory for the VM (whether it fits it entirely into RAM, swaps some etc.). Since you are using Player, I don't believe this option is available to you.

[Yamaeda]

---

@Kevin_Price wrote:

FWIW, I've had this kind of thing happen occasionally in regular Windows environments, non-VM.  Under both Win 7 and 10, both LV 2016 and 2018.

Usually, I'm just trying to select or right-click something, I get 10-20 seconds worth of spinning hourglass (or equivalent), then all my LabVIEW windows rearrange their order so that the one I was working in has receded to the background and something else is on top an active.

Sorry, no solution.  I've just lived with it since it probably only happens two or three times a month.

-Kevin P

---

Are you running in a project? Try to just open a lvlib or vi and see if it's the same. I don't know what the project is doing, but it's a big difference for me with and without one.

[Kevin_Price]

For "real work", I'm pretty much always working from within a project environment.  So I'm quite sure that's where I've seen the odd behavior.  In thinking about it, I'd venture that it usually happens when I have quite a few LV windows open simultaneously (maybe 15+ counting both fp's and bd's?). 

    Then again, that's also my usual mode of operation when I *don't* see the anomaly.  I don't tend to close stuff until I'm sure I'm 100% done with it, and those moments of reckoning don't tend to come around many times a day.

Because of all the advantages of working within a project, I probably won't be doing any serious experiments outside of one to see whether the rare-ish anomaly gets rarer.   I'll just take your word for it.  😆

-Kevin P

[cgibson]

---

@tyk007 wrote:

What addons / toolkits do you have installed? I'm specifically thinking of any VI Packages that use the Project Provider Framework since if they perform poorly it impacts the IDE experience, especially in the Project Window or when right-clicking.

4Gb / 4 cores is often sufficient for basic development without any of the memory-hungry toolkits; 8Gb is better. When I was talking memory reservation I was thinking of a VMWare WorkStation setting that defines how the host allocates memory for the VM (whether it fits it entirely into RAM, swaps some etc.). Since you are using Player, I don't believe this option is available to you.

---

The VM is currently set for 2 cores and it looks like you can't change it. I can create a new one with more cores.

I do notice when these delays happen that the CPU load in the guest OS goes up a lot.

It is our developer image and it has a lot of add ons and toolkits installed. What toolkits have the Project Provider Framework?