Error opening file:"The file XXX.vi is not a VI. Select Another?" Whats wrong?

[Adam Shab]

When I try to open a .vi file that someone else made on my computer, I get the message from LabVIEW: "The file *.vi is not a VI. Select another?" What does this message mean, and how can I open these files?

I am running LabVIEW 6i on Windows 2000 Professional inside an office network.

Thank you,

Adam

[altenbach]

Anyone can take any file and rename the extension to *.vi. This still does not make it a VI, right?

You need to ask the author of the files what they are. There is no other way. Have you tried opening them in notepad to get some clues? (a true VI file typically starts with a few upper case characters followed by lots of garbage sprinkled with a few text words.

(What are you trying to do? Are you actually trying to open a VI program for editing or running?
Some users of my labview applications sometimes make the following mistake, maybe that's your problem: I have a button to read in a new spectrum file, but I usually leave the standard menu bar intact. Sometime, if they try to load a new spectrum, they mistakenly do a "menu..file..open", (instead of pre
ssing the button) then selecting a new spectrum. Of course this will get the error that "abc.dat is not a vi" or similar. The menu item "file...open" is strictly for opening VIs.

[Adam Shab]

The author of the files is a professional who wrote a program for me a couple of years ago. If I try to open the file in Notepad, I get a Windows ! message that says "Access is Denied".

I am trying to open the file directly from the LabVIEW startup screen, I am fairly sure that the process I am using to open the file is correct. (I have also tried just double-clicking the file in Windows). I want to look at the code structure that he used and possibly modify parts of the program.

From my point of view, it appears as though the author may have protected his program files somehow. Is there a way to check for this, or some other way to view the files? Many of the files that I want to look at are simply subVIs that are part of the more complex DAQ
system he made.

[altenbach]

Do you know what LabVIEW version they were last saved? If they were saved without diagram, they cannot be converted to a newer version, but I would think the error message would be a bit more descriptive.

Have you tried opening in an older LabVIEW version?
Have you tried dragging one of the on the block diagram of a new VI?

I assume that you can open any regular VI just fine on this machine. Right?

[shoneill]

Check the rights for your user on the computer. Right-click on the file and choose security settings. If you don't have full access, set it to full access, or have the administrator do it for you.

I experience this a lot at work with some funny rights on network drives. LabVIEW likes reporting that the file isn't a VI when it simply has the wrong rights....

Hope this helps

Shane.

[chrisger]

Hi Adam

after converting a vi with a higher texteditor to UNIX - Format i get the same message. i think the vi has been transferred via FTP in ASCII - Mode. well, do it once again, maybe it works 😉

greetings
chris

[Adam Shab]

I assume that they were saved as LabVIEW 6.0.2 files, since that is the only version on the computer.

I could not copy the files over a network to a different computer that has LabVIEW 7 on it, and I don't have an older version of LABVIEW.

I am not sure what you mean by dragging something on the block diagram of a new VI, but i tried just dragging the icon into a new VI, but nothing happened

yes, I can open any other VI on the system.

Thank you, Adam

[Adam Shab]

If I right click on the file, I don't see any security settings in the properties menu. I appear to have full access to the folder that it is in, but this may be because there are other files that I can access in the folder.

Have you worked around this problem any other way?


Thanks for your response,

Adam

[shoneill]

Right-click and select "properties". Then select the tab for security settings.

I'm assuming Win2k or WinXP. And there is no workaround as far as I know.

Shane.