Issues getting camera to work in dashboard

[APena]

Hi everyone,

First, make sure that you are running the most up-to-date Driver Station. A new update came out recently (1.1). You can get it at: http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/lang/en/id/1535. There was also a LabVIEW update (2.1), so make sure you install that one first: http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/lang/en/id/1534.

Second, some teams have had some luck getting their camera to update on the Dashboard if they uninstall and reinstall the Dashboard. You should be able to do this by running the Dashboard update executable and selecting to uninstall:

and then run the update again to reinstall.

Hope this helps!

Aaron Pena

NI FIRST Support

[Andrew_Markley1]

Sadly enough i have already tried this, 3 times as a matter of fact. The third time is supposed to be the charm, right? For the record I’ll post everything I've tried.

I've reimaged the cRIO, uninstalled/reinstalled driver station, updated labview, uninstalled/reinstalled labview (complete removal), the camera is in fact plugged into port 2 with a cross over cable, reset the settings on the camera and Cisco hardware then repeated instructions in manual, tried a new cross over cable with camera, completely disassembled/reassembled electronics board, tried 3 different computers, tried 3 new basic projects from each different comp, configured camera log in settings manually and using the axis image tool

Unfortunately not a single thing has fixed my issues; luckily I fixed my first 2 original errors with the proccesses above however now i have 3 new ones.

ERROR <Code> -44003 occurred at Camera.lvlib:Issue HTTP Request with Authentication.vi>>Camera.lvlib:Read JPG.vi>>Camera.lvlib:Acquire Image.vi:1
<time>17:34:52 02/10/2010
ERROR <Code> -44003 occurred at Camera.lvlib:Issue HTTP Request with Authentication.vi>>Camera.lvlib:Issue Get.vi>>Camera.lvlib:Set Image Appearance Property.vi>>Camera.lvlib:Set Enum Appearance Property.vi>>Camera.lvlib:Set Image Size.vi>>Begin.vi>>Robot Main.vi

And a watchdog not fed error that occurs every time these two errors enumerate.

I’m disappointed in NI for failing to write a simple update .exe, as i spent 2 fruitless weeks till I found that. I have searched every forum post on Chief Delphi, NI.com/first, and on FIRST's website that had anything to do with the camera and have yet to strike the jackpot. On a further note I am extremely computer literate and have great problem solving skills, so please do not ask basic questions that I have already tried like am I using the right port or the type of cable I'm using. I have exhausted all of my resources on this problem, if anyone has any suggestions that are not time wasting and I haven’t previously tried it please let me know I'll still give it a shot.

And for any NI moderators PLEASE FIND A SOLUTION THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE UNINSTALLING AND THEN REINSTALLING YOUR UPDATES AND SOFTWARE it obviously doesn’t fix every problem in the book, just the problem between the keyboard and the seat.

I apologize for anything that has offended NI staff I’m sure your working very hard to fix our issues since I’m definitely not the only one and competition day is nearing very quickly!

[APena]

Hi Andrew,

I apologize that this has been such a frustrating experience for you. We are doing our best to resolve yours and everyone else's issues on the forums. Here is what I think would be the best moving forward. I recommend that you call NI's FIRST support line @ (866) 511-5285 between the hours of 1:00-7:00pm Central Time and speak directly with one of our engineers who can troubleshoot with you on the phone. Also, I understand that you are computer savvy and I do not mean to be insulting in any way, but here are just some questions and thoughts that could prove helpful during the troubleshooting process:

1.) Are you are using the AXIS 206 model camera that came with your kit?

2.) Verify that you are running the latest updates by going to Help»About FIRST Robotics Competition Software.... It should show a dialog box with version 2.1.

3.) Verify that you are running the new image (v20) on the cRIO.

4.) Do you see an image in the camera's browser configuration page when you directly connect the camera to your computer and open a browser to http://192.168.0.90?

5.) Are you running multiple instances of the Driver Station (Classmate, laptop, other PC, etc)?

6.) Do you have the camera display enabled on the Driver Station? This is controlled by the button underneath the camera image on the Dashboard. It should be a bright green color if it is enabled.

Like I mentioned, feel free to call us between the hours of 1:00-7:00pm Central Time to speak directly to an engineer.

Aaron P

NI FIRST Support

http://www.ni.com/first

[Andrew_Markley1]

I'm sorry for my rant, i had an unusually long and grueling day yesterday, i do appreciate the new suggestions though Aaron Penata. Your the first moderater on the 3 sites I use often to actually respond more than once or twice. Our team doesnt have alot of funds so we have made everything in the kit from this robot and previous go very far and this was our first camera on a robot. The software is all installed correctly and is all up to date for now. I have flashed the cRIO twice with the 2.0 image. When the camera is plugged directly into the computer i have no issues viewing it through 192.168.0.90. As of this point i have stopped using my computer in hopes of eliminating any issues that arise from 2 different computers and I'm only using the classmate. And the button under the video feed display is enables as true as denoted by the green light. I plan on calling the phone number you have provided as soon as possible, i started mounting the electronics to the final board on the robot and im afraid it's in several pieces untill i finish wiring tomorow.

One of my team mates actually suggested something i was unsure of today, On the cRIO itself what should each little button be set at (on/off) specifically the safe mode one. I read through the instructions from FIRST starting from the time you actually put together hardware to how to configure the camera and i didnt see any mention of it accept for when flashing the cRIO.

I appreciate your help and not simply just ignoring my posts Aaron Penata, please keep it up.

[APena]

Hi Andrew,

Regarding the little white dipswitches on the cRIO, when the robot is being imaged all of the dipswitches should be in the off position. The dipswitches function like a see-saw, so the off position would be when the low side is on the left. Be careful when pushing down on these dipswitch, only apply enough pressure to switch the position of the dipswitch. Do not try to slide them from side to side, simply press down on the desired side with a small screwdriver or pen/pencil. These dipswitches should only be used in specific circumstances and I recommend calling into the FIRST support line before altering them.

Going back to your camera issue, is there another team in close vicinity that you could ask to borrow their camera for testing?

Also, I recently heard from a team who was also having issues with their camera and their issue ultimately boiled down to the camera not keeping the password for the root account for some reason. They ended up reconfiguring the camera and that resolved their issue. Verify that password for the root account has been saved.

Another thing you can try is adding an FRC user with FRC as the password like the following:

Also, just to make sure, you are running just the default LabVIEW cRIO Robot Code when you're doing this testing, right?

Let me know how this goes. I'm going to do my best to keep up with this thread.

Aaron P

National Instruments

FIRST Support

http://www.ni.com/first

[Greg_McKaskle2]

I have a few things which may help and clarify.

First, while this is very frustrating, I do not believe this is a issue which needs an update or EXE to correct it.

In order to figure out what is going wrong, let me list a few things which have not been mentioned. The error messages indicate that the cRIO is repeatedly making TCP connection attempts to communicate with the camera. If the HTTP was rejected because of account or password, the error would be -44001. The error being returned indicates that the initial TCP request is the one that is failing. With a phone conversation, we could probe the error wire within WPI to see exactly what TCP error is being returned and verify some other inputs. Another debugging technique would be to put a hub between the camera and cRIO and connect a laptop running WireShark. This would verify what the cRIO is sending and determine if the packets are being ack'ed.

Without going to this level of debugging, another thing that could be checked is to verify that the second port on the cRIO is still config'ed to 192... IP. This is easiest to check using MAX to view the cRIO, then go to the Advanced settings and view the second enet port settings.

If this has not already been resolved, contact tech support again and they can pass you through to my phone if that is necessary. Good luck.

Greg McKaskle

[Crystal]

Greg,

Thanks so much for giving us more things to try.  Uninstalling/installing the SW wasn't productive for us and we work on the robot at times when calling tech support isn't an option.  I've already checked the IP address of the 2nd port on the cRIO in MAX to make sure it was on the same subnet the camera was configured to.  I can certainly dig down in the LV code and see if I can find errors that give me more info than -44003.

If you can think of anything else we can try, please post it.  I anticipate some really late nights coming up and we are just "spinning our wheels" {pardon the pun} unless we can get the camera working.

[MarkGryzwa3206]

I'll add our $.02 from team 3206.

We had a fully functional robot in terms of video, drive system, kicker and compressor until we upgraded to 2.1.  Now nothing works.  I can't even get the code to load to the CRIO.  It hangs on the lvproj file waiting for the CRIO to respond.  I did reformat the CRIO last night that seemed to get us back loading code.  That said however nothing actually works from the driver station. 

Help!

[Andrew_Markley1]

i would suggest pushing the reset button on the cRIO and making sure all your updates installed correctly then trying again. when i updated i just never was able to my camera to work

[Andrew_Markley1]

I gave up my code a long time go hoping it was just some faulty logic. I can log into the camera through the root/admin account as well. After I put the electronics board back together I re-updated, reimaged, and reset everything in hopes that it would fix some magical unforeseen issue and have a working camera. It didn't work. Although I do have a 100% operational robot now!

However some new errors have began occurring, multiple Watchdog Expiration System _ User _ errors just repeat (replace underscores with a num 1-infinity). I assume it's in a loop that's getting iterated every few seconds. And occasionally when I started my teleop session in the lower left hand corner a Watchdog not fed error shows up I can’t run anything. To fix that I just redeployed my code to the robot and the next time it I ran it would disappear. I am not quite sure if that has anything to do with my current issues with the camera.

Just for clarification on your last screen shots Peñata, all accounts on the camera should be in the Admin group right? I made an FRC account with FRC as the password as an admin then tried as a viewer and I didn’t have any luck.

The next 4 days are the last days I have access to our robot before it ships, tomorrow I will spend however long it takes on the phone with support to find the source of my issues and hopefully thus solving the issue for all the other teams with these same problems.

If I was to take a screen shot of certain things denoting my current set up would it help in diagnosing my issues? Just tell me what screens you need, I'll even go as far as letting someone from NI have remote access to the computer if that's any easier; I'd like to help solve this issue for everyone experiencing similar problems I'm just not sure where to look for the issue now.

I appreciate all the effort and any suggestions anyone may have please keep it coming