LabVIEW 2017 Append Text Table to Report VI breaks when newer version of LabVIEW is installed

[JayWW]

Has anyone else noticed that the Append Text Table to Report VI in LabVIEW 2017s Report Generation Toolkit break, or at least lose some functionality when a new version of LabVIEW gets installed on the same machine?

If I have LabVIEW 2017 on a machine by itself, my report generation VIs that use the Append Text Table to Report VI work fine. The input to the Column Width in both of the attached VIs "morphs" to accept an input of a 1D array of double 64-bit real. When newer versions of LabVIEW are installed on the machine, the Append Text Table to Report VI only wants to accept a non-array double 64-bit real.

Any ideas and suggestions are appreciated.

[Bob_Schor]

Generally, one should develop LabVIEW using a single Version (e.g. either all LabVIEW 2017 or all LabVIEW 2021).  Can you "split the difference" and do everything in LabVIEW 2019, or 2020, or 2018?

Another thing to consider is that LabVIEW 2017 was the first version to feature the NI Package Manager for installing LabVIEW versions.  In 2018, I was running "double LabVIEW", having installed LabVIEW 2015 and 2016.  I was (eventually) able to add LabVIEW 2017, but it took about 4 attempts to add the (then) current 2017 software (LabVIEW Professional, LabVIEW Real Time, DAQmx, VISA, and LabVIEW Vision).  When I tried to add 2017 "all at once", it always "broke" midway through, so I'd completely uninstall NI Software, reinstall 2015, then 2016, then (very slowly, a few features at a time) 2017.  Finally got it to go.

So in 2018, I was ready to install "Quadruple LabVIEW".  Took six months of trying, painfully documenting every step and filing "Help" requests with NI Tech Support.  Got a very helpful engineer who went back to the developers, and came back to tell me "Install 2018 first, then 2017, 2016, and 2015".  I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't believe her, so I tried once more in "oldest first" order.  One removal of NI Software later, "I did it her way" -- and it worked!

And that was the last time I had more than two versions installed on a single machine.

My advice (in your case) is (particularly when you have a problem juggling 2017 and 2021) to install a single version and see if you can get that to work.  What are you doing with "the other version" that your chosen version cannot do?  Maybe we can help with that ...

Bob Schor

[JayWW]

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@Bob_Schor wrote:

Generally, one should develop LabVIEW using a single Version (e.g. either all LabVIEW 2017 or all LabVIEW 2021).  Can you "split the difference" and do everything in LabVIEW 2019, or 2020, or 2018?

Another thing to consider is that LabVIEW 2017 was the first version to feature the NI Package Manager for installing LabVIEW versions.  In 2018, I was running "double LabVIEW", having installed LabVIEW 2015 and 2016.  I was (eventually) able to add LabVIEW 2017, but it took about 4 attempts to add the (then) current 2017 software (LabVIEW Professional, LabVIEW Real Time, DAQmx, VISA, and LabVIEW Vision).  When I tried to add 2017 "all at once", it always "broke" midway through, so I'd completely uninstall NI Software, reinstall 2015, then 2016, then (very slowly, a few features at a time) 2017.  Finally got it to go.

So in 2018, I was ready to install "Quadruple LabVIEW".  Took six months of trying, painfully documenting every step and filing "Help" requests with NI Tech Support.  Got a very helpful engineer who went back to the developers, and came back to tell me "Install 2018 first, then 2017, 2016, and 2015".  I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't believe her, so I tried once more in "oldest first" order.  One removal of NI Software later, "I did it her way" -- and it worked!

And that was the last time I had more than two versions installed on a single machine.

My advice (in your case) is (particularly when you have a problem juggling 2017 and 2021) to install a single version and see if you can get that to work.  What are you doing with "the other version" that your chosen version cannot do?  Maybe we can help with that ...

Bob Schor

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Hi Bob,

    We have test software that was developed on 2017, and now we're adding functionality for the USB-6453. The 6453 requires LabVIEW 2025, so that's how we arrived at multiple versions on the same machine. 2017 works fine as long as there aren't any newer versions installed. I guess we'll have to keep separate machines for 2017 and 2025.

[Bob_Schor]

With software that gets a "new version" every year, 8 years (2025 - 2017) is a very long time to expect "no significant changes" in toolkits.  A year or two (maybe even three) might work, but LabVIEW generally works best when there is only a single version installed.

Bob Schor

[Bob_Schor]

Well, the oldest version of LabVIEW that NI certifies runs on Windows 11 is LabVIEW 2022 Q3.  That doesn't mean that your LabVIEW 2017 code won't run on Windows 11, but sooner or later, it will "break".

Bob Schor

[JayWW]

Latest Update: After digging deeper on this, I discovered that our two test system computers that run our LabVIEW 2017 test program from a shared directory had modified versions of LabVIEW 2017 on each computer. He tweaked files in the NIReport.llb folder so that it would handle test reports differently than NI had originally intended. It was difficult to track down, but once I figured it out, everything worked.

Here's the original thread where I discovered what was happening. (I stumbled upon this)

https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Need-custom-column-widths-in-Append-Text-Table-to-Report/td-p/11084...