NI TestStand

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

TestStand slow to start & close

Using Teststand 2016 32 bit with (Labview 2012 32 bit) & Windows 10 and a new PC with 8GB memory, I found that it is very slow to open (4 minutes) and strangely slow to close (1 minute); its so slow that you start thinking that it has crashed.

When running sequences it is ok, and closing the sequence is ok.

I read somewhere that it could be the search directories structure that could cause it to be slow and am unsure which search directories are really needed, and which are not, also some of the files are in absolute paths; however why would Windows be slow to close TestStand?

 

 

 

 

0 Kudos
Message 1 of 14
(4,376 Views)

What exactly is slow to open? There are a few factors here:

  1. Time to initialize the engine
  2. Time to load other UI dependencies
  3. Time to load/unload sequence files and code modules

3 is dependent on the sequence file. For 1 & 2 try using one of the example OIs - you could step through the initialization code and see what's taking so long.

 

Like you mentioned, search directories will come into play. I can't speculate on which ones you actually need because that depends on your sequence file and directory structure. Try to avoid adding any large directories towards the top of the list with 'search subdirectories' checked.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/trentweaver
0 Kudos
Message 2 of 14
(4,365 Views)

It should be taking seconds, not minutes. I'm assuming this is not a fresh install, but a highly customized one. Is that correct?

 

You are correct that search directories could be the problem. Especially if you have search directories to network paths and especially if you have them marked as search subdirectories. In general you should avoid using the search subdirectories option for custom search directories. It not only can lead to performance problems, it can also lead to unintentionally matching to the wrong file if another file in the subdirectory tree just happens to have the same name. It's better to use partial relative paths such as MySubDir\MyDll.dll to refer to code modules in subdirectories of a search directory.

 

Another possibility is Load callbacks on the process model or front end callback sequence. Again this would be due to a customization, not something that would happen with a default install.

 

Hope this helps,

-Doug

0 Kudos
Message 3 of 14
(4,327 Views)

I don't have any network connections. I am not sure which paths need to be defined in the search directories other than the sequence file and any Labview files that it uses. However the top level Labview files that I made probably call NI standard Labview files, do I need to define a path to them also (wherever they are) or not? Additionally there are I guess drivers, stylesheets as well; do these need to be individually defined?

Also this does not explain why it takes about a minute to close TestStand down or does it?

0 Kudos
Message 4 of 14
(4,323 Views)

Search directories are for resolving the file paths specified for code modules in TestStand. They aren't used by LabVIEW or anything non-TestStand related. If you have specified network file paths, but aren't connected to the network, that could cause very long timeouts as your computer attempts to connect to the remote file servers. So not being connected to a network could actually make the delays worse if you have network paths specified in your search directories. If you aren't sure which directories are needed I would recommend creating a default install of TestStand somewhere, start with those as your only search directories and add back in the ones from the other machine as needed to make your sequence files work (i.e. to make the code modules loadable). Even then you might consider changing the architecture of your sequence files to avoid the need for the search subdirectories option in your custom search directories to improve performance.

 

When you exit teststand there are still a bunch of things that happen, such as running the loginlogout sequence to logout the current user. Also if you have any unload callbacks in your sequence files, those are executed as well.

 

With the very long times you are seeing and the fact that you don't have any network connections, I strongly suspect the issue is that your machine is trying to access files on a network path and is constantly having to wait for the attempt to timeout before continuing. You can always try reverting to the default search directory settings for teststand and see if the problem goes away.

 

Hope this helps,

-Doug

0 Kudos
Message 5 of 14
(4,294 Views)

I am very much in agreement with search directories and load/unload callbacks being the likely cause here.

2 more things I would add about search directories:

1) if this is on a development system you are using revision control (I hope you are) you may need check the box in the search directory configuration to exclude hidden.  This will keep TS from searching through the source control cache files.

2) don't ignore your windows "path" environment variable.  If that is part of your search directories, and you have network paths as part of your path environment variable things can be slowed down a lot.

Message 6 of 14
(4,280 Views)

I have moved the search directories order and that has made a speed difference, but it still takes 2½ minutes to start-up and ½ a minute to close TestStand.

I have attached my machines search directory list, maybe someone can spot a problem with this?

 

 

 

 

0 Kudos
Message 7 of 14
(4,260 Views)

The ones visible look ok. Can you scroll down and look at the remaining ones? The scrollbar looks like there are more after those.

 

-Doug

0 Kudos
Message 8 of 14
(4,255 Views)

In looking more carefully, you should probably uncheck "Application Directory" and "Initial working directory". Those are unchecked in a default installation. The default ones checked are the following and they are in this order. You might want to change yours to match:

 

1) Current sequence file

2) current workspace

3) teststand public directory

4) teststand directory

5) teststand bin directory

6) Windows system

7) Windows

😎 public components

9) teststand components.

0 Kudos
Message 9 of 14
(4,250 Views)

I tried changing the order to the one suggested that is similar to the default, but it still takes TestStand about 2½ minutes to start up and about ½ minute to close.

I wonder what TestStand is doing during this time?

 

0 Kudos
Message 10 of 14
(4,171 Views)