Windows XP System crash with LabView 7.0

[ChristianK]

We are using a number of Labview .vi´s continuously reading data from the serial port. The .vi´s have been running without any problems for weeks. Upgrading from Windows 2000 to XP-Prof. now causes the complete system to hang (no graphic card signal) or to reboot after some days of regular function.
Are there any known incompatibilities between LabView 7.0 and Windows XP-SP2 that might cause complete OS failure?

[Ray.R]

Hi ChristianK,

I hesitated to reply to this one... and I shall explain.

When we "upgraded" from Win-2000 to Win-XP-Pro, we experienced a number of strange behaviour. If you do a search, I'm sure you'll find a number of threads. The behaviour ranged from LV shutting down by itself, to LV freezing to Win-XP freezing or re-booting. We tried to convince mngt to go back to Win-2000. The decision was to "stick with Win XP and debug our code".

Why I hesitated to reply... for this reason: - we did not do anything which would be considered debugging our code. However, the strange behaviours started to dissappear one by one, until we had a stable system again.

All was fine.. No more changes to the code.

Low & Behold!!! Someone installed Win-XP SP2.. The PC reacted badly to this one.. 😠
Re-installed Win-XP with SP-1, re-installed LV7.0, re-installed the backup copy of the vi's.

Everything ran smoothly. No SP-2! And Automatic Upgrades turned OFF.

What is the cause of the problem? We have no clue.
However, we are sticking to the saying: "Don't fix what is not broken". 😉

I'm not sure what others have experienced with Win-XP, but from what I recall, others had strange behaviour.

As for Win-XP & SP-1, things are still running smoothly.

I thought I'd share this bit of experience because it is frustrating when code developped on Win-2000 stops working when upgrading the OS to Win-XP. The worse part is when the PC reboots automatically or freezes, it is very difficult to debug. 😞

Hope things work smoothly for you too.

-JLV-

[beyerch]

very familiar sounding .... 😞

We just went from WinNT / Labview 5.1 to XP Labview 7.1 and .....

One of hte machines works just fine.
One every now and then (like once a month) just freezes in the middle of program execution. (The app program freezes, not the whole computer)
And the one I'm typing this message on right now (while contemplating jumping in front of a truck) consistently fails to run the very same program the others run with no issue. . . At first it would freeze up randomly, then it worked like 5 times, and now it consistently freezes in the exact same spot. 😞

None of these machines had a hint of trouble with NT and LV 5.1

I'm new to labview so if I missed a big post about upgrade problems or something, please link me. It seems I have a lot of reading to do....

Charles

[ChristianK]

Charles,

After discussing this topic with Joe, we decided to stop the Windows firewall installed by SP2. Now, after about six weeks of continuous operation we did not see any further system crash. You therefore might wait with the truck stunt until you have lost the first MB of irretrievable data.

Christian

[Ray.R]

Thanks Christian,

That's very valuable info. You're saying that by simply turining OFF the WinXP firewall, that the crashes stopped???

Leave it to MS to have ***censored*** features...

I am still keeping away from SP2 until I stop hearing about horror stories with XP.

JLV

PS: I hear complaints everyday from people who just received new PC's with WinXP (at work) and are having problems with it. They run various applications..

[beyerch]

Yeah I'm not really goin to jump into a truck's path quite yet, but this is very frustrating.

The machines are running SP1 so I do not have to worry about firewall.

I've done some tracing and it appears to be hanging on a Wait.

On one machine, it zips right through and on the other it hangs. Whoever wrote the code has the Wait for Occurance set to a timeout of -1 and this is why it just freezes. The 64K question though is why does the other almost exact machine with the exact same data files and exact same version of labview not have any problem with this occurance but yet this machine does each and every time.....

maybe i'll just put NT 4 back on the machine.....
*yuck*

[Ray.R]

NT4 ??? !!! ???

Do you have Win-2K?

Mine worked great with Win2000 & SP-2. I recently ventured to SP4.
However, I have to "tweek" the PC a little.
But prefer it to the XP-roblematic machine.

😉

[beyerch]

don't look at me. i've been here a total of 2 weeks. They have been running these things on NT boxes. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. They are on an internal network, no fear of hackers and they don't need updates for much because these are very specific function machines....

I personally HATE NT but hey, I have to agree if it works.....


Well the other day one stopped working .... Repeated Blue Screens of death.... So we just figured hey lets go put XP Pro on it. (Our only choices are NT or XP Pro, no Win2K here...)

But after these random failures .... i'm wishing we went back to NT ... 😞


P.S. I have been programming software in one form or another since I was 13 (GW-BASICA on my TRS-80) and I have to say that Labview in general kinda has me pissed. heh. Well, its tooooo graphical. There are some things I want to do which would be very easily done with a few lines of code, but unless i missed something there does not appear to be any "code windows" to write anything... Talk about learning curves !

[beyerch]

Problem solved.....

I recopied the .vi files from the other machine again. no go.
So then I uninstalled Labview 7.1. Evidentally it leaves the run-time files, but removes everything else ....

Bingo.

Works now.

Don't ask me why that would make it work, but it does, and for right now that is good enough for me ..... :0

[Ray.R]

Well....

I did promiss in one of the XP threads that I would provide feedback if I ever installed SP2 on XP..

😠

I unfortunately didn't listen to my inner voice NOT to install the **censored** cursed SP2..
I installed it.. "Press FINISH to restart your PC" were the last words that my machine said before going completely brain-dead...

Let's just say that I didn't get a chance to open LV (Or anything else) since the devastating experience of installing the latest version of SP2. 😠

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