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Why is Building an exe in LabVIEW 8.6.1 so slow?

I have a fairly large application (about 2000 VIs) that I am trying to convert from LV7.1.1 to LV8.6.1 and it is a very challenging process!

 

I was able to load all of the VIs into LabVIEW 8.6.1 and correct all of the mislinked VIs (such as VI names that changed in the Report Generation toolkit and others), but when I try to create an exe it takes about 1 second per VI to build.  Why does it take so long?

 

Also, when the exe is finished compiling, on the 2 computers I've tried it on, the exe doesn't load (it gives a windows crash!).  I tried creating the exe in a "clean" virtual environment and that worked which means I probably have version conflicts with the other 2 "real" computers (I have 4 versions of LabVIEW installed on the real computers).  I've also tried loading it into LabVIEW 8.5.1 and the creation of the exe is a lot faster but the exe still does not work.

 

This is getting really confusing and frustrating!

 

Thanks,

Bruce

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What type differences in time to compile an exe have you seen between 8.5 and 8.6?  Do you see an error message when your exe crashes?

 

With over 2000 subVIs I would not expect the compilation process to be that fast, but it should not take as long as 30 minutes.  Did it compile any faster on your virtual machine?

ColeR
Field Engineer
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It takes about 10 minutes to compile in LV851 and about 20 minutes to compile in LV861f1.  Both take about 5 minutes when the progress bar gets to the last VI.

 

I was able to get my code to compile to an exe that is executable by uninstalling IMAQ 4.1 (Vision Acquisition Software 8.6) and installing IMAQ 3.8 (VAS 8.5). I avoid IMAQ 4.0 because the structure of the .iid (for instance img0.iid) files is messed up (see NI forum iid file structure in IMAQ 4.0 changed). This bug is fixed in IMAQ 4.1 but apparently there are other new bugs that were introduced.


I'll try my luck with IMAQ 4.2 when it comes out, but until then I have work to do.

 

Days lost, totally frustrating. Not a good LabVIEW/NI experience. And I'm stuck using old software versions to get things to work.

Bruce


P.S. I've been cross posting to lavag forums as well (exe built with LV crashes) about similar issues regarding my upgrading experience.

Bruce

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Did you do a mass compile of the VIs before loading the 8.6.1 project? When you did the 8.5 build, were the VIs already compiled for 8.5? I've got a fairly large app as well (no vision though) and I have not noticed much of a time difference as long as I loaded VIs compiled for the version I was working on. If you are not loading VIs saved in that version, the compilation has to take place before the build starts.

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Yes, I did make sure the VIs were compiled before creating the exe.  I did it by loading all of the VIs into memory and then closing them (which asks for a save).  The time spent is not bad in the beginning (the initialization process), but at the end where it takes about 5 minutes when it hits the last VI.  Although the time aspect is annoying, the more important aspect is that the exe crashes when I try to run it.  I could live with the time if the exe would work.

 

Bruce

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Hello Bruce,

 

Does this crash happen when loading your executable or does it run at all?  You can try to build a debuggable executable to find what's causing the crash.  When you build this on your non-virtual machines, what are the versions of LabVIEW that you have on the machines?

ColeR
Field Engineer
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No, I didn't think about making a debuggable exe.  It seemed like a Windows crash type dialog so it didn't even occur to me.  If I get a chance I'll see if I have some more luck by making a debug exe.  On the Virtual machines I only had LabVIEW 8.6 and IMAQ 4.1.  But I have multiple versions on both my office and lab computers.

 

Bruce

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What does this crash dialog say?  Can you post a picture of it?  And just to be clear, were you able to compile your code on the virtual machine and run it without crashing?  Have you run this exe on one of the machines that you cannot compile on and if so, do you get the same crash?
ColeR
Field Engineer
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