NI-MAX is extremely slow to load for LV2020

[UnkleQuacker]

I have two test systems that have identical equipment.  Each has a couple Keysight PXI chassis populated with Pickering cards, Keysight cards, NI cards, and Keysight PXI controller. Test equipment installed in the test rack made by Keysight includes Oscope, signal analyzer, network analyzer, signal generator, single channel power supply, multi-channel power supply, and RF power meters.  I am using Test Stand 2020 with LabVIEW 2020 and NI-Switch Executive 2020.

I have an issue with both systems that NI-MAX takes up to 15 minutes to load when I try to open it.  I should note that neither system is connected to the internet and they never will be.  All test equipment in the test racks are connected to a network switch inside the rack and each network switch is connected to the local network in the work space (again, no outside network access).   GPIB is not used at all.  All NI-Software and drivers have all been installed using default installation settings and were downloaded directly from NI download servers.  I've also installed Keysight drivers (again with default settings) from Keysight download servers, and from NI product pages, including Keysight IO Control which is mandatory for installing most of their drivers.  Pickering drivers were also downloaded from the Pickering download server and installed with default settings.  I have the system controller set up as National Instruments inside NI-MAX.  All of the equipment works, and the test software I'm running is working as well for the most part.  Sometimes TestStand will throw errors because it can't find the Switch Executive virtual device being referenced or the VISA instrument is not available. When this happens is when I try to open NI-MAX and must wait...

I've tried numerous troubleshooting methods to get MAX to startup faster, and none has really yielded good results.  Sometimes it will start up after a long wait and I'll have all of my network devices, PXI devices, and Switch Matrices.  Sometimes it will start and either network devices or switch executive virtual devices are missing. Sometimes the Switch Executive virtual folder itself is missing.  Sometimes I get an error about a database connectivity error saying I need to restart my system and gives an error code, but I can't remember it exactly (48Hxxxxx).  I used that error code in a search took me to the page to troubleshoot (Database Connection Error in Measurement & Automation Explorer (NI MAX) - NI).  I verified the firewall is not the issue.  I verified the two services listed are running (NI Config Manager and NI Device Loader). I currently have NI LXI Discovery Service disabled, and that seemed to help initially.  I've tried disabling NI PSP Service Locator, NI Route Coordinator, NI Application Web Server and none seemed to help, or made it worse, so they've all been re-enabled.  I have used the Reset Configuration Data command from inside MAX --> tools, then manually added my configurations again and it was still not loading in a timely manner.  I ran the ResetNIConfig command from the command line with the /reset switch and also with the /test switch (not knowing what test does, just seeing if it did anything).  I have archived and removed the Data and Data Dictionaries folders from the Program Data/MAX directory and reset again using command line so it would rebuild the folders.  Nothing has seemed to help.  Next step is to uninstall/reinstall, but I don't have high hopes since it's an identical problem on both test stations.  I will also note that there is test equipment from various manufacturers on the same network (which is why I disabled LXI Discovery Service).  Also, when I am able to get NI-MAX to startup and it has any issues, I'll try the Refresh from the view menu and it will then take a very long time to refresh and windows will display that it's not responding during this time.  One note is that as soon as I hit refresh it will bring back the Switch Executive Virtual devices folder immediately, but I can't click on anything while it's still refreshing.

I'm thinking about uninstalling NI-488.2 as there are no GPIB controllers and GPIB is not being utilized at all.  I'm not sure if any of the other NI software packages relies on NI-488.2 though, so I'm a bit hesitant about removing it.  My thought being that maybe MAX is looking for GPIB resources that aren't there and is just timing out.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!!!

[UnkleQuacker · Accepted solution]

Nevermind.  I found the culprit.  I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out.

There are Keysight M1912A power meters attached to the system. I had them in NI-MAX and put aliases on them to use in my development.  I removed just the power meters, leaving all of the other devices in MAX, then closed MAX and re-opened it.  It opened normally, in less than a minute.  Put the power meters back and it then took a very long time to load again.

I'm not sure what the hiccup is with having those power meters listed as network devices in MAX, but I'll just use the IP addresses instead of Aliases to reference them and leave them out of MAX moving forward.