NI Package Manager Woes

[RagMan]

Over the past 20 years, I have installed NI software (LabVIEW, VeriStand etc) and drivers (DAQmx, VISA, XNET, RIO etc) numerous times. The process has been usually smooth, and was completed in a reasonable amount of time (1-2 hours).

But now things have changed for the worse with NI PM. Every time i want to install some NI software or driver, the NI PM takes over and messes up things. At best, it completes successfully after a very long time (usually hours when it took minutes before with the previous installers). At worst, it just hangs up with no information as to what it is doing or no way to stop it other than killing it in Windows. Here are some issues that I have had over the past 2 months:

1) I had installed LabVIEW 2018 32-bit and 2018 Sound & Vibration Toolkit a couple of months ago. Also installed LabVIEW 2019 64-bit and 2019 Sound & Vibration Toolkit. But i never used them until today. Then I found that the Sound & Vibration VIs in 2018 are messed up (actually completely missing) but they still show up as being installed in NI PM. So I try to do a repair install of just the SV 2018. But PM took it upon itself to go do 2019 as well and in the process just got hung up! It has just been frozen at this point for the past 2 hours.

2) Last month I faced an issue with installing the Database Connectivity Toolkit for LabVIEW 2019 64-bit. NI PM kept trying to download something over the internet and failing with the error message that said "There was a problem executing your request. Please Check your Network Connection". This is strange because  a) I specifically ran the off-line installer version of the the Database Connectivity Toolkit which I had downloaded previously b) my network connection was very good.

3) Failed to install NI-DAQmx support VIs, NI-XNET support VIs when it installed the NI-XNET and NI-DAQmx drivers (both 19.5) even though I had installed LabVIEW 2019 beforehand. I did a repair install, but to no avail. Then NI PM would not find and install the higher version (19.6), even though I could see that this was already available at ni.com. I had to download them manually from ni.com and install to get the support VIs.

4) It does not install the correct type of LabVIEW Suite that we are licensed for (Professional, Full Development etc). Not sure if this is even selectable when you install through NI PM. So after installing whatever type of LabVIEW was available in PM,  I was unable to get it activated with our Volume License Server. Finally I got a media CD from NI with our specific type and installed it from the CD. Only after this I was able to get LabVIEW activated with our Volume License Server.  

Sorry for the rant. I am just frustrated with NI PM and don't see any alternative to bypass this. I am sure NI PM has many wonderful features for advanced developers (creating packages etc..). But I am just trying to install LabVIEW and drivers and this should be easy.

[RagMan]

Actually my point (1) is not entirely accurate. Let me clarify.

I first installed LV 2018 32-bit back in late 2018 and I was able to use it for a while, and upgraded my application successfully over to 2018 and released it users. My application uses both the Sound and Vibration (SV) toolkit and Database Connectivity (DC) toolkit (I was staying with 32-bit LV 2018 at this time as the DC toolkit was not yet supported in LV 2018 64-bit).

Then in late 2019, I installed LV 2019 as I wanted to experiment with 64-bit version of the DC Toolkit which became available for LV 2019 64-bit. After this, I was able to run my application in 2019, but had some random crash issues. But I did not check if my application still worked in 2018 assuming that it was still good since I did not change anything in LV 2018.

The 2018 32-bit version was my application's last good release, so I need the LabVIEW 2018 32-bit, SV and DC Toolkits to support it. Now if find it got messed up. 

Having multiple versions of LabVIEW co-exist on the same PC was never a problem for me until now. 

[RagMan]

Another frustrating experience with Package Manager today.

I was getting a new Win10 system ready to run an EXE I had created in LabVIEW 2015. This EXE uses DAQmx and XNET.

I installed LabVIEW 2015 RTE (about 15 min), NI DAQmx 18 & NI XNET 18 (about 30 min) without issues using installer media we have in our network drives. All this was done with standalone installers (i.e., no PM). The installation was smooth, the progress window clearly showed overall progress and finished cleanly. At this point the PC is free of PM.

For some reasons I can't remember now (something to do with setting up Queue size based on Sample Rate and # of Channels I think), we needed XNET 19, as this was not working in XNET 18. So I downloaded the off-line installer for XNET 19 from ni.com and started installing this.

This is where trouble started. I had forgotten that this would now come with the dreaded PM, which I was assiduously trying to avoid. Sure enough, PM got involved and started installing all manner of software (even though I selected only XNET). I saw things like "NI Portability...", "QPXI something", and far too many items to even remember getting installed. All this time I never saw any mention of XNET. There was no progress bar to give an indication of overall progress, just a couple of progress bars to indicate the status of the current sub-task. So basically useless since I have no clue how many of these sub-tasks exists.

After 2 hours of this and that, finally PM showed a message that it was installing NI-XNET 19.. So I thought the end was near and started getting hopeful. Then this happened:

Now, this error message says to check internet connection. There are two problems with this. One, this is an off-line installer I downloaded for the express purpose of avoiding this type of connection problem. Two, I am on a wired hi-speed network in a big corporate office where internet connection just does not drop-off now and then.

With some foolish hope, I pressed the "Try Again" button, but PM was done and I was out of luck. So after close to 3 hours of babysitting this PM "supervised" installation, XNET 19 did not get installed. Sure PM was chugging along installing this and that, but no XNET 19. All this remind of a Murphy's Law "When all is said and done, a lot more has been said than done!".

Thank you PM!

[mwatkins]

I completely feel your pain and hate this new NI Package Manager way of life. 

I'm preparing up a new test station, installed LV/TS/NI DMM/NI DC Power/NI Switch/NI SE/etcetcetc. Everything installed after multiple reboots etc, per norrmal. 

Go to run my applications and hey, instr.lib is empty!! Cool, so goto ni.com to grab the latest drivers and just do it the good ol fashioned way. NOPE! Cannot install the drivers manually. OK. So run NI PM and do the repair on DC-POWER. Wait 2 hours for it to repair tons of stuff that looks unrelated then it finally finisheds and HEY, instr.lib now has DC-Power! We are back to square 1. Now to rinse and repeat with NI-DMM & NI-SWITCH  & etc etc etc. 

sorry work, cant do you today because I'm "repairing" installations all day instead of just downloading some installers. 

[crossrulz]

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@mwatkins wrote:

Go to run my applications and hey, instr.lib is empty!! Cool, so goto ni.com to grab the latest drivers and just do it the good ol fashioned way. NOPE! Cannot install the drivers manually. OK. So run NI PM and do the repair on DC-POWER. Wait 2 hours for it to repair tons of stuff that looks unrelated then it finally finisheds and HEY, instr.lib now has DC-Power! We are back to square 1. Now to rinse and repeat with NI-DMM & NI-SWITCH  & etc etc etc. 

sorry work, cant do you today because I'm "repairing" installations all day instead of just downloading some installers. 

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Instead of a Repair, you can go into the "Packages" tab and uncheck the "Products Only" option. You will see your "Support for LabVIEW" for each driver in there.  Select the ones you want and install.