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VXI Technology SMIP Soft Front Panel Error

Running LabWindows on a Windows2000 platform. Just installed the V.T. SMIP1200 carrier with a SMIP3001, SMIP5001 & SMP5002 installed in slots J100, J102 & J105 respectively, in our VXI chassis. Ran MAX and found the carrier...however when we run the SMIP soft front panel we get an AUTOCONNECT error. Conversations with the VXI Technology Tech. Support indicates that NI has a default setting in either VISA or MAX that prevents SMIP's from being recognised. They suggest I come to NI....so here I am...what is the setting I need to change and how do I do it?
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Hello!

I have searched our support data bases, and have found no mention of a SMIP. Unfortunately, I do not know what setting VXI Technology is referring to. There are many settings within the NI-VXI driver, so I will need more information in order to be able to instruct you how to change the setting. Under what situations does their soft front panel return the AUTOCONNECT error? Do they have any other information about the identity of the setting you need to change? Does the SMIP require shared memory? Also, what VXI controller are you using, and what version of the VXI driver? I am more than happy to instruct you how to change settings in NI-VXI, however, I need to know what setting (or the purpose of the setting) the SMIP requires.

Julian
na Forrest
Applications Engineer
National Instruments
www.ni.com/ask
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Roger,

Unfortunately, we do not have any installation and configuration documentation specific to these SMIP's. Was their any more information that VXI Technologies gave you on the setting? If they can describe exactly why it failed, or exactly what this setting does, then perhaps we can easily find it. Also, what kind of controller or VXI interface are you using (ie embedded controller, GPIB-VXI/c controller, MXI-2, MXI-3, VXI-1394, etc).

That said, their are some basic things to try, and we can make some educated guesses. First, with VXI, you must run the resource manager, or "resman" for short, before communicating with modules. From MAX, their should be a button to run the VXI Resource Manager. If running resman before the SMIP soft front panel solves the problem, then you will want to configure your system to automatically run the resource manager on startup. This is done by going to "Tools >> NI-VXI >> VXI Options" in MAX and checking the box to have the VXI Resource Manager run at startup. Additionally, if their is a problem with logical address assignment, etc, resman should fail and provide an error that would be helpful determining the next step.

The only other info I have is what I found on the VXI Technologies website about configuration in A24 versus A32 address space. The section below is copied from the "General SMIP Product FAQ" on www.vxitech.com:

Why do I get an 'Autoconnect to First Failed' message when I try to run the soft front panel that was supplied with the device?
The SMIP requests 2MB of extended memory. If you are using a GPIB slot 0, only A24 memory space is accessible, whereas using MXI or Firewire allows access to A32 space as well. There is a dipswitch on the SMIP carrier that allows you to select the type of extended memory space requested. This is a black two-position switch located at the bottom of the carrier. The first position of the switch must be set to the up position if you are using a GPIB slot 0 controller. If you are using a MXI2 or Firewire interface, set the switch in the down position.

Regards,
Greg Caesar
PXI/VXI Applications Engineer
National Instruments
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Greg,

We are using MXI-3 as our VXI interface (using VISA 2.5.2). We have resman automatically installed during start-up, so that's not it. We have also tried running resman from MAX as you suggested, without effect.

We get the "Autoconnect to First Failed" message, or something similar to it, everytime we execute the SFP.

We contacted VXI Tech. regarding this matter and the tech support engineer indicated he'd been down this path before with another customer, only he doesn't recall what exact steps & tools were involved in the process. He did mention that it took a knowledgeable NI tech support person to get them up and running, so he suggested I seek out that same person at NI...I know it's quite vague, but without any instruction manual
s, that's all I have to offer.
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Roger,

Unfortunately, after asking around, I could not find anyone that remembers the earlier incident. However, we have a troubleshooting technique that will narrow down the problem. Most NI drivers, including NI-VXI and NI-VISA, install with a utility called NI-SPY. NI-SPY will log all function calls to the appropriate driver (ie NI-VISA, NI-VXI, IEEE 488.2, etc), as well as the value of all parameters passed and returned by the function. Therefore, the next thing to try is to simply launch NI-SPY and start logging. Then, go ahead and run the Soft Front Panel and do what is necessary to generate the error. Finally, go back to NI-SPY and stop logging. Then, save the log file and attach it to this email thread. Hopefully, by looking at th
is NI-SPY log, we can determine exactly where the SFP is failing, and then correct whatever configuration problem is the cause.

You can find NI-SPY at Start >> Programs >> National Instruments >> NI-SPY.

To help understand the NI-SPY log file, we will also need to understand how the VXI system is configured. Please go ahead and let us know what VXI and/or VME modules are in your VXI system, the Logical Address of these modules, and any address space in A24 or A32 that these modules are requesting. If the system is small, it might be best just to look through the configuration in MAX and type that information in the reply. However, for a large system, you might consider generating a logfile of the resman run. To do this, goto "Start >> Run" and run "resman -l". This will generate a logfile called "resman0.out", which will hold much information about the system.

By the way, what I am describing above is a technique that National Instruments Technical Support uses frequently
when we see support calls of this type. This very well may have been the technique that was used in the earlier incident.

Regards,
Greg Caesar
National Instruments
Applications Engineering
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For future readers of this thread, at the time of this incident, we got this solved offline from this developer exchange forum. Solution was posted at the link below in February 2001:

KnowledgeBase 2IK7BNLS : "Preventing "AutoConnect to First Failed" Error When Communicating to VXI Technologies SMIP Modules"

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/3efedde4322fef19862567740067f3cc/3a45b3dd74ca777e86256b67004edf34?OpenDocument
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Message 6 of 9
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Sorry - make that February 2002.
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I am having this same problem. However, I don't seem to have the properties in "Right-click your VXI controller and select Properties."

 

 

 

Message Edited by nickflyer on 09-09-2009 02:26 PM
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I assume it's something very basic. I don't use MAX very often but I just can't figure it out! Shucks y'all! Help me here!
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