Polymorphic VI Selector - group sorting

[IG.B]

Dear community,

Out of nowhere I've encountered a most annoying phenomenon, for me anyway....

suddenly, polymorphic VI selector dropdown menu is not grouped like it was, you can witness the horror in the attached image.

I've searched the net, the forums and even asked AI... Couldn't find no cause of the problem, nor the solution.

Please help me...

LV 2018 x32

 

[Bob_Schor]

My only thought is that you might be running "old" ("obsolete"?) software, which "worked" until some "more modern" software bollixed things up (that's a technical phrase that means "made a real mess out of things").

LabVIEW 2018 (32-bit) is designed for PCs running Windows 10 (not Windows 11), and with no version of LabVIEW (or NIPM!) more recent than LabVIEW 2018 + 4 = LabVIEW 2022 (I may be "off by one" -- the time span is generally "5 years compatibility", and 2018 through 2022 "spans" 5 years).  If you keep up with NI's "Updates", then you probably have some 2026 code in there which may be messing things up.

Here's something you can try, but I'd recommend trying it on another PC, preferably one (still) running Windows 10.

1. Uninstall all NI software (if present).  This involves running Control Panel, Programs and Features, and removing all NI software using NIPM.  You need to make three "passes" (as I've described several times on this Forum over the past 6 months), with the second step removing NIPM itself.
2. I recommend you do not delete NI Folders, and especially do not mess with the Registry.
3. If you installed VIPM, you should probably uninstall it, as well.  If you do so, you can (probably) safely delete the folder C:\ProgramData\JKI.  Note -- I haven't recently tested this step.
4. At this point, download and install LabVIEW 2018.  If you have a 2018 version of the Installation kit (probably on a USB key), use that, as it won't have "recent" updates.  Install only those features that you need -- don't install "all the options".

Good luck.  Let us know if you are successful.

Bob Schor

[altenbach]

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@IG.B wrote:

Out of nowhere I've encountered a most annoying phenomenon,

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(I never use and DAQmx and I cannot tell if it should look different...)

Since this is a "write" VI, it will probably adapt to whatever you wire to it, so there is no need to ever show or use that selector.

[Andrey_Dmitriev]

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@IG.B wrote:

Dear community,

Out of nowhere I've encountered a most annoying phenomenon, for me anyway....

suddenly, polymorphic VI selector dropdown menu is not grouped like it was, you can witness the horror in the attached image.

I've searched the net, the forums and even asked AI... Couldn't find no cause of the problem, nor the solution.

Please help me...

LV 2018 x32

 

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You might have an older version of DAQmx installed. According to the NI‑DAQmx and LabVIEW compatibility table, the latest version compatible with LabVIEW 2018 is 21.8.

Once that version is installed, the items should be grouped as expected, at least on my PC 2018SP1 32-bit and DAQmx 21.8:

You can verify this by opening the polymorphic VI — there you should see “:” separators.

In the worst case, you can create your own polymorphic “wrapper” and organize it the way you want. But I would like to recommend to try reinstalling DAQmx using version 21.8.

[rolfk]

Aside from reinstalling (the correct version) of NI DAQmx, could it be that your system somehow changed something in the regional settings? It feels far fetched but the colon character used in the polymorphic selector configuration somehow might get messed up in some weird string runtime libraries that in turn depend on regional settings.