Nifb.exe hangs up on Windows XP

[Frank Schoch]

I am using NI-FBUS Configurator 2.3.6 on Windows XP SP2. Everything was installed correctly and device manager shows no error. Everytime I try to start NI-FBUS configurator it tells me that NIFB server is not responding. In the system tray I can see the blue icon of NI-FBUS 2.3.6.

For me it seems as the nifb.exe has not start up properly, because it doesn't give me the message that I shouldn't kill that process. In the upper part it tells me that it is initializing board 0. Somehow the software seems to be stuck during initialisation of the PCMCIA card (PCMCIA-fbus/2).

What can be the reason for that?

[fieldbus]

The NI-FBUS Configurator 2.3.6 version was developed before Windows XP SP2, thus there might have some problems.

However, the Configurator software had been tested with XP SP2 version thoroughly since 3.0 version. In this case, I would suggest you upgrade to the latest 3.1 or 3.1.1 version, which was developed on XP SP2, and there is no such hang problem as I know.

To test whether the new version works in your side, you can download the NI-FBUS Communicacations  Manager 3.1 version from www.ni.com/support/fbussupp and try to run NIFB 3.1 version, see whether it still has such problem.

Hope it helps.

[Frank Schoch]

I removed all National Instruments software from my PC and installed NI-FBUS Communications Manager 3.1. The problem is still the same. The NIFB.exe hangs during initialization.

If I remove the cordset of the PCMICIA card the NIFB.exe process starts up correctly. But if I plug it back again I cannot do any fieldbus communication at all.

I tried the same on a laptop with Windows XP SP1 and also on a PC with Windows 2000 SP3. Everything was working fine without any problems. Therefore I think that the problem is not related to the PCMCIA card. The problem must be a software problem which occurs on PCs with SP2 (XP) installed.

[fieldbus]

If you plugged off the PCMCIA-FBUS cable (cordset), the NIFB process can start correctly; then I would doubt there might be some conflict in the FF network that the PCMCIA-FBUS cable connects to. Did you connect the PCMCIA-FBUS cable to any existing H1 network with any fieldbus host system or any H1 device? If so, I suggest you change the node address of your PCMCIA-FBUS interface to a visitor address and set the Device Type as "Basic Device" in the Interface Configuration Utility, see whether it helps.

It is a little bit strange that you have no such problem in the laptop with Windows XP SP1 or Windows 2000 SP3, I would suggest you try to run the Interface Configuration Utility in the laptop with Windows XP SP2, click the Board, choose "Edit", set it to "Polled Mode", then restar NIFB.exe, see whethe it still hangs.

On the other hand, what is the information on the title bar of NIFB.exe when you encountered such failure?