Application builder closes labview

[NIDave]

For whatever reason my application builder quit working.  I had built several applications since I installed 8.0 and all work fine but now when I try to build an application it closes out LabVIEW and never builds anything.  There are no error messages and it is not resident in the task manager (windows XP) anymore.  It seems to be a clean close, but why can't I build an app anymore?  I've tried it with both a VI and a project file seeing if that made a difference and neither work.

Also after talking with tech support I uninstalled and reinstalled 8.0 with no luck.  I also checked my license manager and app builder has the green box next to it. 

Furthermore I have the "NI-PAL Service Manager has encountered an error and needs to close" error on boot-up.  Could this be linked? 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks,

Dave

[DuffmanSays]

Dave,

This sounds like an interesting issue you are having with your application builder. I was wondering if the behavior you experience is specific to the VI you are trying to build, or if this behavior is exhibited for all applications? Can you trace this behavior back to any change in the software configuration on your machine?

What NI software is installed on the machine? I believe the service manager error may be linked to another driver. I would not think that this would affect your LabVIEW application builder, but we can explore that possibility. Thanks,

Mike
National Instruments
Applications Engineer

[NIDave]

Mike, thanks for the offer of help, I'm becoming desperate.

The error occurs whenever I try to build anything.  I even created new VIs and new projects and tried that. 

I can't remember any software changes that occured between when I could build apps and when I couldn't, however I'm sure there were some.

I tried in desperation to uninstall and reinstall LabVIEW 8.0 again this morning and still have some errors when I boot.  I also have 7.1 professional dev system and numerous toolkits installed on this PC.  Because of this I'm really not looking forward to the suggestion of uninstalling everything NI related and reinstalling it and hoping that solves the problem.

I appreciate any help you can provide.

Regards, Dave

Attached is a screenshot of all my errors this morning with the "more info" dialogs displayed beneath them,

[DuffmanSays]

Dave,

I’ve got a few more suggestions for you to try before you do a complete reinstall… Hopefully we can avoid that for you and not take up more of your time in the process. My first suggestion would be to install the LabVIEW 8.0.1 patch (linked below). After installing this patch, please follow the instructions to mass compile your LabVIEW directory. The Service Manager error is most likely linked to the driver that you have installed. As such I would not expect this to be causing the behavior you have seen, but you might try repairing or reinstalling your DAQmx driver to resolve these errors.

Unfortunately if these suggestions are not successful, we may not have many more options than a complete reinstall of NI software. It is very likely that this process would solve the issue you have been seeing. From the testing you have done, we have established that you do not have a corrupt LabVIEW installation and that your application builder is installed and activated. Because LabVIEW exits completely when attempting to build an executable, we have no specific information on the state of LabVIEW when it closes.

Please let me know if the above suggestions allow you to successfully build your LabVIEW application. If you are still experiencing difficulty, I can also provide you with a utility that will remove the NI software from your machine. Thank you very much for your time, and I apologize for this inconvenience.

Mike

LabVIEW 8.0.1 Patch:
http://digital.ni.com/softlib.nsf/websearch/4C1209D42320BCFD8625711C005FB25B?opendocument&node=132070_US

[NIDave]

Mike,

Thanks for the help.  I downloaded the patch and installed it.  As you mentioned the dialog box came up for mass compile and I selected it.  It took a while but it seems to have failed.  I have a text file in my LabVIEW Data folder that explains the errors it encountered.  I'll attach it.  As it is LabVIEW prompts me to mass compile everytime I start version 8.

Also it seems my last successful build was on 9/15/06.  Could this be a licensing issue? It seems like the date was right around the 1 year anniversary of that package but I could be wrong.

Finally I get an error when I try to open my .lvproj files from previous builds that I made.  When I select one from explorer it spawns LabVIEW, shows the splash screen, and then disappears and leaves a dialog box that says "There was a problem sending the command to the program." 

Another problem I seem to encounter is that I can't save a duplicate hierarchy to a new location.  I was trying to do this so I could go build my app on another system. 

Any insight you can provide would be great.

Thanks,

Dave

[Doug M]

Hi Dave,

The NI-PAL Service error messages are being caused by your NI-Motion driver, possibly in connection with your NI-DAQmx driver.  I would highly recommend downloading and upgrading to the latest versions of these drivers to try to get rid of that error, in the case that it is causing other things to fail. Because you are seeing errors, it would probably be a good idea to uninstall NI-DAQmx and NI-Motion before installing the new versions.  They can be downloaded here:

Drivers and Updates: NI-DAQmx 8.3 
Drivers and Updates: NI-Motion 7.4 

I don't think the 1 year anniversary of your install would have anything to do with Application Builder stop working or getting error messages. Usually if a product is not activated there is a 30-day trial period, but in your case it seems that the products are activated.

The problem when you try to open a .lvproj file and seeing the error: "There was a problem sending the command to the program." definitely suggests some sort of corruption or installation problem.  If after trying to get rid of your NI-PAL errors you are still having these problems, you may have no choice but to start clean.  In this case it would be easiest to start with a fresh Windows XP image, but there are ways to just remove all National Instruments software.  If you choose that route, please open a service request via phone/email with National Instruments.

I would also encourage you to upgrade to LabVIEW 8.2 if you are on our Standard Service Plan.  Creating a duplicate hierarch can be done by creating a source distribution or a zip file from the Build Specifications.  The source distribution tool is much improved in LabVIEW 8.2 from LabVIEW 8.0.1. 

[NIDave]

Doug and Duffman,

Many thanks for all the help.  I removed the NI-Motion and NI DAQ mx and that seems to have fixed everything.  Now my project explorer window opens and I havent tried but I can get to the build window. 

This is a huge relief as I'm in the middle of making changes on a LV 7.1 VI with vision among other things and a major project on 8.0 with all sorts of hardware and didnt want to remove all that and have to start from scratch.  Especially knowing my new PC will be here in a few months and that will force me to start over again.

Thanks again for all the help.  Now I just need to install the new NI motion and DAQ mx and make sure it still works but it should. 

-Dave

[Doug M]

Dave,

Glad to know that seemed to fix things.  Let us know if you continue to experience trouble.

[NIDave]

Doug,

You're going to think I'm nuts but everything worked yesterday when I left.  It worked again this morning, then I installed NI DAQ mx from the link you gave me, rebooted and I'm back to square one.  I can no longer build apps.  This is crazy!!!

Any more suggestions?

Thanks,

Dave

[Doug M]

Dave,
Hmmm. Okay, let me see if I have a clear picture of what is occurring.  Let me know if any of these assumptions are not correct.

1) You have LabVIEW 8.0.1 with DAQmx 8.3 installed.  You are no longer getting NI-PAL errors on bootup.
2) In NI License Manager, you have LabVIEW Professional Version activated or LabVIEW Full version with Application Builder activated (green square icon).
3) You create a simple application in a LabVIEW project, say a single VI that adds two numbers.  You right-click on Build Specifications, select New»Application (EXE), add your VI as a top level startup VI, and click Build. At this point LabVIEW simply shuts down.  When you restart LabVIEW, no error message is shown.  There was no error log created at <My Documents>\LabVIEW Data\lvfailurelog\lvlog<date of crash>.txt.

If all these things are true I'm somewhat out of ideas.  One thing you can try is to add the following line to your LabVIEW ini file: DWarnDialog = TRUE

This will show a dialog if an internal warning occurs, however if a more serious error occurs it won't show anything.