Cannot connect to remote system (in MAX or otherwise)

[willclayton]

Hi,

I'm trying to set up a new PXI based system although I'm not currently having much luck in doing so. This is the first system I've attempted to set up personally, although there are already a number of near-identical systems in operation where I'm working.

The PXI system is set up, and boots into LabVIEW RT fine. However when I try to connect to the system in MAX it simply does not appear on the Remote Systems tab. My concern is that where LabVIEW RT specifies an IP address it shows 0.0.0.0 - I've made sure the reset switches are off and disabled the IP reset in the BIOS to make sure that this isn't causing this to happen, but as far as I can tell this may well be the cause of my problems. The guides provided with the PXI controller etc. aren't much help, and the website hasn't offered any clues - I seem to be in a bit of a catch-22 situation where I need to have a set IP address on the PXI controller in order for MAX to be able to connect to the controller and set the IP address.

Any advice would be appreciated.

FYI: PXI controller is an 8196

Will

[RobCole]

You can have problems if the version of software on the PXI does not match the version that you are using on your computer. What is the RTOS version on the PXI and what is the version of MAX that you are using?

For example, a PXI with LabVIEW RT 8.0.1 on it will not show up earlier versions of MAX (I can't remember all of the version numbers - I'm running MAX 4.1 right now).

Try updating your NI-VISA (it comes with the latest version of MAX) and see if the PXI will show up for you.

     Rob

[willclayton]

Thanks for the advice, have just installed the new NI software (MAX etc) onto a different laptop and tried connecting to the PXI system from there, but no luck.

From my non-NI based knowledge I'm reasonably sure that this problem is due to the PXI system having an IP address of 0.0.0.0 - which is invalid. As it cannot be addressed across the ethernet connection I don't see how it could really be connected to.

The hardware switches are set to not reset the IP and in any case I've set the BIOS to ensure this is the case as well, for some reason though the IP appears to remain reset. Is the IP supposed to remain at 0.0.0.0 before the PXI system has been addressed from MAX, or is it supposed to obtain a 'random' IP address from somewhere - such as a DHCP server?

I'm going to see if I can get the PXI system to boot into a command line and attempt to set the IP manually in the settings file. Any advice would still be appreciated though, and of course this still may not work - I'm thinking there must be something I'm missing.

Will

[JamesC]

Hi Will,

The IP Address is supposed to be 0.0.0.0 when you first setup a system, as NI does not know if you have a open DHCP server and MAC address locked DHCP or no DHCP server, so we can not be gauranteed of getting a IP address. For this reason we use an IP address that should not be able to be produced (0.0.0.0) so that no one else on the network will have it.

We then use a special UDP packet to get the RT device details so we can set an IP address in MAX.

You will need to make sure you either use a Crossover cable to the RT target or are on the same subnet of a company or home network.

Make sure you have a valid IP address on your machine (with MAX and VISA installed) and have a subnet mask in the form 255.255.255.0

This is a standard subnet.

Within MAX go to Remote Systems and press F5 this will refresh your remote system list by sending out the UDP packet, it will take up to 60 seconds to find all RT targets, as that is the timeout of the packet.

You should now have a remote target that reads 0.0.0.0 in your remote systems list and then you can change the IP address and install RT software.

Regards
JamesC
NIUK and Ireland

Message Edited by JamesC on 08-23-2006 01:16 PM

[RobCole]

One other thing that you may want to take a look at is any firewall settings on your computer. You may want to disable the firewall (temporarily) and then try refreshing the display in MAX. I have had my firewall block access to PXIs before.

     Rob

[willclayton]

Thanks for the tips guys, I've now solved the problem - although I can't fully understand why it existed in the first place.

All I can say is that I attempted to configure the PXI system using the host computer from another system (a desktop) which worked first time once the new version of MAX was installed on it. It seems as though the initial connection and setup procedure wasn't compatible with the laptop I was using previously - although this can now 'see' the system now that is has a 'valid' IP address.