Shared Variable Engine not always started

[Kevin Handy]

I'm experiencing an intermittent problem with the LabVIEW variable engine.  The National Instruments Variable Engine service is configured to start automatically with Windows but that doesn't seem to always be the case.  Every now and then I'll load my application only to find red LED indicators on all of the controls accessing my shared variables.  I'll bring up the variable manager and stop/start the service, restart my application and then they're all green LEDs and everything works.  Any idea what might be causing this?

Thanks,

- Kevin Handy

[Matthew_Williams]

Hi Kevin.  I don't know what causes the problem, but I have seen it on our systems as well.

Our solution was to have our application stop and then start the variable engine every time
it launches.  Stopping might not be ok for you depending on how your applications are
architected, but for us it is fine.

We use two System Exec.vi calls, with the following strings:

net stop "national instruments variable engine"
net start "national instruments variable engine"

Haven't had any instances of the application coming up w/o the variable engine since
we added this initialization step.

Matt

[Kevin Handy]

Ah, yes that will do the trick.  I can't believe I didn't think of that solution.  I had been looking for a built-in vi to stop/start the service but I don't utilize "System Exec.vi" very often so it didn't come to mind.

Anyway, thanks for the tip.