VIPM bricked my LabVIEW Installations, what now?

[ChrisLudwig]

So installed LabVIEW 2019 on my dev machine and then installed a bunch of third party packages with VIPM.  After that, I couldn't open LV2019.  It would crash on open.  I couldn't uninstall those packages either because VIPM couldn't communicate with LV2019.

So, I uninstalled LV2019 and reinstalled.  Unfortunately, VIPM thought the previously installed packages were still installed.  I found no way to get VIPM to update the currently installed package list.  So, I uninstalled VIPM via NIPM.

Unfortunately, NIPM listed every LV install since 2009 as a dependency of VIPM and deleted them all.  Thanks NIPM.

I deleted every directory I could find related to VIPM including everything under C:\Users that was in a JKI folder.  Then reinstalled LabVIEW 2019 and VIPM.  Well guess what, it still lists all the third party packages as eing installed already and doesn't give me any means to install third party packages.

So, what can I do short of nuke and pave my OS?  Where does VIPM hide its persistent data?  

[Bob_Schor]

VIPM does leave behind its "former history".  As I recall, the first time I saw this, I just used VIPM to "uninstall" the packages that it (mistakenly) thought were still present.  You can also remove the JKI folders, but be sure to include the ones in hidden Profile folders if you take this route.

Bob Schor

[ChrisLudwig]

VIPM times out when I try to uninstall non-existent packages.  Any idea where the hidden profile folders are?

[cbutcher · Accepted solution]

I'd give "C:\ProgramData\JKI\VIPM\databases\LV 19.0" or similar (depending on installation drive, and LabVIEW version) a look.

In there I see a list of what appear to be my installed packages.

Nearby directories (e.g. C:\ProgramData\JKI\VIPM\cache ) give a list of all packages as updated when you open VIPM. Not sure if you'd want to blitz that too...

[Bob_Schor]

When I uninstall VIPM, I also remove all folders that appear to be VIPM-related (and, thereby, also all of their sub-folders).  My current LabVIEW installation has a folder in Program Data called "JKI" that has two sub-folders, "VIPM" and "VI Package Manager 2019" -- if uninstalling VIPM (a.k.a. VI Package Manager), I'd delete the parent JKI Folder, thereby removing all "stale" data relating to the now-removed VIPM software.

Bob Schor

[ChrisLudwig]

That did it, the list of installed files was here:

C:\ProgramData\JKI\VIPM\databases\LV 19.0

I just had to delete that directory.  Thanks!!