Shared Variable Engine Crashing

[shoemakesmusic]

I'm using Labview 8.6.1 and DSC module 8.6.1.  Shared variable engine just started crashing as soon as it tries to start.  I know you guys are going to say reinstall labview, but it's in a remote location and the install disks are not there.  Is there anything else that can be done to fix this?  I've rebooted and restarted everything I can think of.

[Justin_P]

Hello,

Could you tell me what you mean by "Shared variable engine just started crashing as soon as it tries to start."?  Do you mean when Windows starts or your VI/ application starts?  Also how are you determining that you crashed?  Is the National Instruments Variable Engine Service stopped or some other symptom?  

We can try some stuff, but we might end up at the solution you're afraid of.

[Joachim082]

Have you tried to disable the NI Citadel service and restart the system - I've had the case that the citadel service causes the shared variable engine crash. Maybe you give it a try.

[shoemakesmusic]

Ok bare with me, alot has happened here and thank you for the help.  The error that I was experiencing occurred anytime Windows started. The first thing that would popup would be an error message saying that the Shared Variable Engine had died.  This error occurred before I even thought about opening LabView.  I am sure that the Shared Variable Engine It was the general Windows error message with the option to "send" or "don't send".  If I then started LabView after that and tried deploying my variables by right clicking my library and pressing "Deploy All", LabView would popup the normal box that shows the status of variable deployment.  It would almost immediately fail deployment and then a few seconds after that I would receive the same error I got when I started up Windows (Shared Variable Engine failed).  I went to the services in Windows and tried restarting the Shared Variable Engine from there.  I would start it and then a few seconds later it would stop and give me the same error.  I tried doing the same thing from the Distributed System Manager.  Same Result.  Same Error.  

I found a section on this site about people having problems with C++ Runtime errors that would basically cause the same thing to happen.  Their Shared Variable Engine would fail.  The advise I found there led me to the Distributed System Manager.  It said to right click on the libraries and remove all the processes or "end process".  What I had were two libraries there.  One that I was using and one that I wasn't.  I was able to end the process for the one that I wasn't using but not for the one that I was using for my current project.  I removed that process and restarted Labview and I deployed my variables and got the same error.  No luck.  Until, I restarted Labview again and deployed my variables again and it magically healed itself.  Maybe I didn't wait long enough for the process to stop, not sure.  My variables deployed, I opened up my VI and everything was working great.  I am assuming that by removing that unwanted process, I found my fix.  But I guess I can't be sure.  That process, which was just a library that I had created for another project and was no longer being used, had been there for a long time (6 months).  And I was having no issues to speak of.  So I guess my ultimate question is what the heck happened that caused all this.  I'm sure its bad form to have a process running that isn't needed, that's my fault and I will certainly be more aware of that in the future.  I just wish I knew what caused my problems so that they won't happen again.  

Any thoughts? 

[Joachim082]

Have you tried to disable the NI Citadel service and restart the Shared Variable Engine service (maybe you have to kill the tagsrv.exe task before starting the shared variable service)?

[shoemakesmusic]

No, I was going to try that, but then it stopped crashing.  I will definitely keep that in mind the next time it happens.

[BChandler]

Thank you!   That was my problem too