NI-MAX, DIO cards, NI Configuration Manager service and latest Windows update

[billko]

Has anyone had issues with NI-MAX today?  Our site had a big Windows update that affected many (every?  i have no idea how widespread this is, but could be company-wide) test stations that NI Services running on them.

Seems the service that NI-MAX relies on is blocked from starting, and even when it does start, NI-MAX can no longer communicate with DIO cards.  it can't even identify them, even though they seem to be just fine in Device Manager.

Please note that these are Win7 machines running LV 2012.  I'll get more info and tack it on as I find it.

Thanks for any response!

[Kyle97330]

The issue for us was mostly related to our antivirus not getting along well with the update.  Do you have one on the affected PCs and can you turn it off temporarily to see if that allows your NI software to work?

[billko · Accepted solution]

Hi, Kyle:

That was my initial assumption, also.  What actually happened turned out to be much more mundane than that, though.  What happened was, the update made the boot-up slow on our poor, under-powered PC due to non-stop hard drive activity, and the two services that MAX depends on - the config one and the device loader one - weren't starting when we needed them to.  The hard drive grinding persisted even through a bunch of reboots, so it was really difficult to figure out.  Finally, the grinding stopped sometime last night and things seemed to return to normal.

Here's what I'm guessing happened.  This update seemed to have messed with the actual user profiles, so I bet the immensely hard drive activity was due to the system updating the zillion-and-one user profiles we have on the system.

Thanks for the response!

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan · Accepted solution]

Yes, Windows/Corporate updates can cause issues with Ni Device Loader Services not getting started.

Had several systems deployed for years without issue and then one by one over the span of a year systems started flagging errors since it could not find the DAQ cards.

The only way to fix that per my notes was to:

1. In Services, set NI Device Loader (nidevldu) to Delayed (don’t ask why, it is the only setting that works, Retry did not work, Automatic was the default but once this issue occurs it no longer works)

2. Restart PC

-AK2DM