Help - RT controller stops responding, once embedded VI application starts

[Chad_H]

Dave,

Thanks for the list. I have a few comments and questions:

1)You don't have to load the VI before building it. In fact, it should ask you to close the VIs before building.
2)In step 11, did you build Scanner3.vi, or Load Chan_Analog_Out? You said Scanner3.vi, but I suspect you built Load Chan_Analog_Out. If you did, indeed, build Scanner3.vi every time, that would be very interesting.

I will be trying to reproduce this.

Regards,

Chad H.
Applications Engineering
National Instruments
http://www.ni.com/ask

[Dave_Bell]

1) I know, but I've been running with the compact window at launch time, which doesn't have the pull-down menus. I load a VI, if for no other purpose, to get them. If I don't have the compact launch window up, I get an empty VI anyway.

2) As written!! All it appears to require is a differently named VI be Loaded, then the actual target VI be added as source file(s).
If I switch to the "normal" launch window, and it opens the blank VI, I bet the Build problem will vanish. Only apparent because I left the default launch style set?

[Chad_H]

Dave,

What do you mean by "compact window"? Do you mean the navigation dialog that has the buttons "New VI", "Open VI", "DAQ Solutions", etc?

What do you mean by "switch to the "normal" launch window"? What do you mean by "default launch style"?

Regards,

Chad H
Applications Engineering
National Instruments
http://www.ni.com/ask

[Dave_Bell]

What do you mean by "compact window"? Do you mean the navigation dialog that has the buttons "New VI", "Open VI", "DAQ Solutions", etc?

That's the one I meant. As for the rest, I was probably thinking about the new VI window, with the full menu bar.
This is the way I normally see LV come up, after having deselected "Show this window at startup"...

[Chad_H]

Dave,

I could not reproduce this. Perhaps I missed something. I just used a simple VI, which I will attach.

Here is what I did:

-Verified that no files existed in ni-rt\startup on the RT Engine.
-Targeted LabVIEW Real-Time Development System to the RT Engine
-Wrote a VI, test1.vi, that just writes the character "a" to file called c:\ni-rt\startup\temp.txt.
-Tools>Build application>Source files>Add top-level VI (test1.vi), did not include error files>build>close VIs>OK>Done>No
-dir in FTP shows startup.exe created at 17:26.
-Tools>Network Options>RT Target: Misc>Launch Application at Bootup checked.
-Close LabVIEW, reboot RT Engin
e.
-Using DOS FTP, retreived temp.txt and saw "a". Deleted temp.txt.
-Target Development System to RT Engine. Closed all VIs and updated. Opened test1.vi.
-Tools>Build application>Source files>Add top-level VI (test1.vi), did not include error files>build>close VIs>OK>Done>No
-Use FTP to list directory contents of ni-rt\startup.
-The new startup.exe was created at 17:35.

Do you see the same thing if you follow these steps? Are there any steps I am missing?

Regards,

Chad H
Applications Engineering
National Instruments
http://www.ni.com/ask

[Dave_Bell]

Curiouser and curiouser...
I followed your steps, as annotated below, and found basically exactly what you did. Could the content of the VI affect this?!?

-Verified that no files existed in ni-rt\startup on the RT Engine.
I don't normally do this, but did this time.

-Targeted LabVIEW Real-Time Development System to the RT Engine
-Wrote a VI, test1.vi, that just writes the character "a" to file called c:\ni-rt\startup\temp.txt.
-Tools>Build application>Source files>Add top-level VI (test1.vi), did not include error files>build>close VIs>OK>Done>No
I normally do not explicitly delete the error files, but as below, this made no difference

-dir in FTP shows startup.exe created at 17:26.
-Tools>Network Options>RT Target: Misc>Launch Application at Bootup checked.
How? This comes back to my confusion about the window visible at this time: As soon as I close all VI's, I return to the dialog you described this morning, and have no Tools or other menus.

-Close LabVIEW, reboot RT Engine.
I don't normally close LV. Instead, I Target to the host PC, before rebooting the PXI. I tried closing LV this time, but in the later retries, I just changed Target. No difference found.

-Using DOS FTP, retreived temp.txt and saw "a". Deleted temp.txt.
-Target Development System to RT Engine. Closed all VIs and updated. Opened test1.vi.
-Tools>Build application>Source files>Add top-level VI (test1.vi), did not include error files>build>close VIs>OK>Done>No
-Use FTP to list directory contents of ni-rt\startup.
-The new startup.exe was created at 17:35.

Other than the different time stamp, I agreed completely.
I continued to retry. Another Build, and I had a new time. Build, without rebooting the PXI first, still new time. Build without deleting the error files (from PDI Control Toolset; why are these even there?), still new time. Usually a slight variation in byte count, by the way. Not sure if that is significant. (130323, 130315, 130311, 130315, 130329...)

I now turned to Building and testing my own GPIB VI...
Built, checked time stamp, Built again, new time stamp, Built once again, new time stamp. Beginning to think I was imagining the whole thing!

Note that I had not been rebooting the PXI between those Builds. (Had not in the latter parts of re-testing your VI, either.) I now rebooted the PXI, and verified the VI ran on boot. Recovered control, Targeted the PXI, and Built. ftp'ed in, and found OLD time stamp.

Without rebooting, switched Target to PXI, Built, checked time, still OLD time stamp.

Going to go home...

[Chad_H]

Dave,

I think I finally figured it out. If you "recover control" of a VI that was started on boot up, stop it (do not close it) and then try to build it again, the Application Builder will pop up a window called "VIs in Memory." If you then press "Close VIs" the build will finish, but startup.exe will not be updated.

For the work around, manually close the VIs in memory before starting the Application Builder. That seems to solve the problem. Let me know if this works for you, too.

I have reported my findings to R&D.

Regards,

Chad H
Applications Engineering
National Instruments
http://www.ni.com/ask

[yonatan_tidhar]

Hi
did RT FTP server support long names or only 8.3 name format?
i have problem in ftp (i use windows explorer)like createing and deleiting files