why does MAX take so long to update

[faustina]

When I startup MAX I must wait for at least one minute after the screen appears before pressing F5 (refresh) and the correct configuration appears.  If I don't wait, none of the Remote Systems are displayed.  Even when I try to display the software under My System I get a MAX VISA Timeout Error.  MAX gets unresponsive and I have to delete the process from Task Manager. 

There is no FireWall enabled on the host computer.  NI Configuration Manager and NI Device Loader are running.  There nas never been a serial or ENET device to any of the target systems or the host computer.

So if all the information is there, why does it take so long to be displayed?  If the systems are not displayed on MAX, there is no hope of deploying software.

[DiscoBall]

Hi Faustina,

Can you please information about the following:

• MAX
• VISA
• Operating System
• Network configuration (wireless,crossover, managed IT)?
• How many remote systems are display

[faustina]

MAX version 4.6 of 1

VISA version 4.5.1

OS on host Windows XP Pro 2002 SP2

OS on target LabVIEW RT 9.0

using LabVIEW 2009

ethernet connection via hub between target and host

2 remotes systems

there is only 8% disk space available on host (40 GB hard drive).  this is a problem when running defrag, needs 15%.  could this be contributing?

[DiscoBall]

Hi Faustine,

Low disk space can cause general computer issues. You should attempt to run the Windows Disk Cleanup Utility . There are also thrid party defraggers that can help improve
disk space usage when Windows Defrag is not working well.

I'm sorry for not asking this before but you mentioned that you got a VISA error, what was the specific code that you got? Can you post a screenshot? What are the remote
systems that you are trying to connect to? Has this always been an issue on this particular computer, or did it get worse after something happened?

[faustina]

the 2 remote systems I'm trying to connect to are a

NI PXI-1042Q Chassis 

NI PXI-8106 RT/WinXP Controller (change BIOS to determine OS)Dual processor2 GB RAM32 GB hard drive250 GB SATA hard drive (Windows only)BIOS version 1.2.2 LabVIEW Real-Time 9.0

and a

NI PXI-1042 Chassis 

NI PXI-8106 RT ControllerDual processor2 GB RAM56 GB hard driveBIOS version 1.2.2 LabVIEW Real-Time 9.0 slot 2; NI PXI-6682 GPS, IRIG-B Sync & Time module slot 3; SCRAMNet+ SC150e slot 4; NI PXI-4224 DAQ with Signal Conditioning NI-Sync 3.1 Beta

The PXI-1042Q has cards from a 3rd party vendor and ever since I installed those cards my host PC has been behaving badly.  LabVIEW aborts without an error, blue-screens-of-death, issues with MAX, etc.  Naturally these problems are sporadic and as of yet, not repeatable (except for the MAX problem).

[JoshuaP]

Would it be possible for you to update your host and LabVIEW RT target to NI-VISA 4.6?

http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/1370/lang/en

It uses a slightly different mechanism for retriving information from the target and it would be interesting to see if it makes the problem go away.

-Josh

[Song_D]

faustina,

Could you take a NI Spy capture while launching MAX? You can find NI Spy in Start Menu » All Programs » National Instruments » NI Spy. Once in Spy, go to Spy»Option»Logging Tab and select "Log to File". Then start capturing and launch MAX. The log will show us exactly what is going on with VISA when MAX is being loaded.

Could you also generate a technical report from File»Create Repor... in MAX. Finally, I'm curious how you got into this state. Did everything work correctly before? If so, what changes (software installation) did you make that caused this behavior?

[faustina]

I loaded VISA 4.6 and still have the same problem.  I've included 2 files from NI-Spy.

[Song_D]

faustina,

According to the log, the timeout is caused by the GPIB-VXI passport. You can try either of the following to fix the issue:

Go to the VISA options tab in MAX under Tools»NI-VISA»VISA Options.

1) Disable the GPIB-VXI passport in Passports section

2) Disable the "Auto find every GPIB-VXI" in General Settings section.

Also, what you are seeing should not happen even with the GPIB-VXI passport enabled. So I'd like to ask you a couple of questions:

1) What version of NI-488.2 (if any) do you have installed?

2) What GPIB controllers (if any) do you have that are connected to your machine?

[faustina]

I have NI-488.2 version 2.52 and do not have any GPIB controllers connected to my machine