OS X 10.8 and LabVIEW, Specifically NI-488.2 GPIB Explorer

[sullivnc]

I called your support staff and they told me that OS X 10.8 doesn't even support LabVIEW.  I am running it on several machines.  The one problem I am noticing is with my RS-232-GPIB and GPIB-Ethernet/100 converters.  I have installed your NI-488.2 patch and have run the NI-488.2 GPIB Explorer.  The problem is that I have to run the explorer every time I need to switch off the converters.  The Explorer doesn't recognize them when I turn them back on.  Is it even true that OS X 10.8 doesn't support LabVIEW?  If so, what are you doing to rectify this problem?

[sullivnc]

Do any of you who work at NI know the answer to this?

[Esteban.R]

Hi Sullivnc

Here is a link with the versions Mac OS that are supported

LabVIEW Support for Mac OS 10.7 (Lion), 10.6 (Snow Leopard), and 10.5 (Leopard)

If LabVIEW is not supported in MAC OSx 10.8 what this means is that so far it has not been fully tested, so it is possible that LabVIEW might run in that OS but is expected to have problems and bugs.

Regards

Esteban R.

[Justin_P]

Hi sullivnc,

I have used NI-488.2 3.0.1 on 10.8.  While we have not done extensive testing I found all major functionality was there, and didn't run into major issues.  

I tried to reproduce the behavior you were discribing with the ENET/100 and I was unable to.

Here is what I did:

1. Added the ENET/100 with GPIB Explorer
2. Built the Sample.c application with the correct BoardIndex and Primary address of my instrument
3. Ran the samapp to make sure it was functioning correctly
4. Turned off the ENET/100
5. Turned on the ENET/100 and waited for the PWR/RDY and Link lights to turn solid
6. Reran the samapp and saw that it still ran successfully

Do my steps replicate what you are doing?

[sullivnc]

I am not familiar with Sample.C or samapp, what I've been doing is installing the NI-488 patch and then running the GPIB Explorer each time that it fails to communicate.  What would I have to do to download/find and run Sample.C and samapp?

[Justin_P]

First can we discuss what you mean by the NI-488 patch?  The current version of NI-488.2 for Mac OS X is 3.0.1 and there have not released a patch for it.  Are you referring to 3.0.1 or something else? 

After you install the driver you should be able to find the example that I'm referring to at /Applications/National Instruments/NI-488.2/Sample.

[sullivnc]

The patch I have says  NI-488.2 Patch Mac OS X 3.0.1.dmg.  I install this before running the GPIB Explorer.

I do see the Sample.c file.  I'm not familiar with this type of file extension, what do I have to do to run it?  And I still don't know what you're referring to by "samapp".

[Justin_P]

We are using the same driver, which is good.

We don't need to build the C example if there is something else that you are used to.  Are you using LabVIEW code or are you using some prebuilt application?

[sullivnc]

To apply the patch and run the GPIB Explorer are both prebuilt applications.  That's all I've been doing.  I'm only noticing the problem on this one computer because we switch back and forth between different equipment being plugged into the GPIB-RS-232 converter.  To test that it's working I run a LabVIEW code that we use to talk to the GPIB converter.

[Justin_P]

Can you reproduce this with the "LabVIEW - GPIB.vi" example in the example finder?  Now it sounds like you are switching the instrument connected to the converter where before it sounded like you were power cycling it.  What are the actual steps to reproduce?  And can you see the same behavior with the ENET/100?  That's was I was using.