LabView 2011 crashes frequently when saving VIs or projects

[smercurio_fc]

I'm perfectly content with keeping this civil. After all, I wasn't the one who decided to come back to the forum after a year and a half, and start belittling someone else.

As for your problem: you need to figure out if this problem is endemic to your particular installation of LabVIEW, or if it's related to your project. Clearly, if LabVIEW had a generic "let's crash twice a month" we surely would have known about this by now. So, the problem is either with your installation of LaBVIEW, or your project. What does your project consist of? How big is it? What toolkits are you using? Do you have, for example, any IMAQ stuff on front panels? Are you using classes? Do you have a lot of project libraries? Have you tried to perform a force recompile (hold down the Control key and press the run arrow), starting with your top-level VI? Does it crash when saving the same VI, or is it random? You may have some corrupt VIs.

[smercurio_fc]

One additional suggestion, to try and see if the problem is the environment: create a virtual machine. This will allow you to control what's actually installed, thereby running LabVIEW in a sandbox. If you are accessing hardware, you probably won''t be able to run the program, but then you said the problem occurs when saving, not when running.

[Ben]

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@charliep wrote:

You are an angry person. People with questions must be scared to ask you anything. You are unlike all the other tech support people I have worked with at NI.

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Correct!

As of today all of the "Knights of NI" are volunteers so it should not be suprising that we relate differently than those that work for NI.

And of course we all have our own personalities and we are who we are. "Take me like I am or let me be." (I'm a One Woman Man, from Oklahoma).

as to the crashing...

more info is required to try and nail it down. THis thread may have info to help you get a crash dump that could give you a clue.

Once a month crashes will require discipline on your part to trck down since you will probably forget about taking notes about the crashing right before the next crash.

Saverio's suggustion about the virus checking is an idea I would like to echo since they get their hooks into the save function and want to "do you a favor" and check for viruses AND they can lock entire directories when they are board and think the should rescan a folder.

THe repiars and re-install suggestions are good "shotgun" actions that cover a lot of ground.

Take notes on what you are doing, and the system memory usage etc etc and hopefully you will find the critter that is biting you.

Just my 2 cents,

Ben

Yet another non-NI employee

[danil33]

Hi,

    Now a days some people are posting comments only to scold others.There is a saying that  'A word from a teacher's lips is better than reading 1000 books

[Ben]

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@danil33 wrote:

Hi,

    Now a days some people are posting comments only to scold others.There is a saying that  'A word from a teacher's lips is better than reading 1000 books

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OR

"Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." 23 Psalm

Ben

[j.masse]

So, the problem is either with your installation of LaBVIEW, or your project.The crash occurs when saving either a project or a VI.

What does your project consist of? Top level VI and many dependent VIs for the project and if it is not a project then many basic VIs. Top level VIs are usually state machines. Usually one other parallel While Loop for event cases.

How big is it? My latest projects have created executables that are only 400k in size

What toolkits are you using? Though i have the Developer suite with all tool kits, only the Office toolkit is used but sometimes I will write directly to a file when necessary.

Do you have, for example, any IMAQ stuff on front panels?ve Front panels are wuite simple although the latest one has a Tab contol embedded in a tab control embedded in a tab control. Other than that waveform graphs, controls and indicators.

Are you using classes? No

Do you have a lot of project libraries? Only 1 at a time

Have you tried to perform a force recompile (hold down the Control key and press the run arrow), starting with your top-level VI? The quick anser is no. When would I do this? Obviously it is too late if the system just crashed.

Does it crash when saving the same VI, or is it random? The crash knows no pattern. It can happen the first save after I just created a new VI or it can crash after a save with many VIs built in. Same with LabView projects.

You may have some corrupt VIs. This is the typical result after the crash. The project or the VI becomes corrupt. Thankfully I usually have backups in place.

I have attached a picture one of my recent projects. I will look into Crash Dump screen but when the crash occurs, my only recourse is to unplug my computer since the crash locks my PC to the point that even the Ctrl-Alt-Del task manager wont appear.

[Ben]

re: Can't get Task Manager up...

Are any of your VI's set for non-standard priority settings?

Are you using the most recent version of VISA ?

Try starting the Task Manager before you open your VI so it available to look just incase it crashes again.

Sounds like there is something very busy running in the background.

Ben

[j.masse]

Can't get Task Manager up... Correct

Are any of your VI's set for non-standard priority settings? NO and the Affinity is not changed

Are you using the most recent version of VISA ? 5.1.1

Try starting the Task Manager before you open your VI so it available to look just incase it crashes again.I have in the past and the CPU utilization is approx 50% per CPU by LabView.exe.

Sounds like there is something very busy running in the background. Correct but it appears to only be LabView.

I realize this is very hard to troubleshoot from a distance and appreciate your help. I am trying to limit the amount of applications that are open while running LabView but unfortunately there are things beyond my control such as virus scans or other possible IT things that are happening without my knowing. I am also getting a new laptop soon and transferring the LabView development to that. Hopefully this could make a difference if it is a unique PC related issue, though I am still puzzled as to why. I will keep you posted if there is an improvement.

One more question:

Is it possible to have too much Labview on one system? I also have 8.0, 8.5 and 2011 not to mention multiple RTEs though only one version of LabView is running. (On the laptop, I only intend to install 8.0 and 2011. The 8.0 is necessary for some legacy code in house that newer versions of LabView will not open.)

[TroyK]

(Sorry to defibrillate a cold thread.)

Did you work it out? Has one of the suggestions worked?

I get a similar problem that has carried over to LabVIEW 2011SP1 from LabVIEW 2009SP1. I usually don't have to reboot the PC though.

(I completely removed all NI products and only installed the new stuff, then did a mass compile on all my code.)

I thought my issue had something to do with network delays when saving to source control.

I (am forced to) use ClearCase for source control and it is set to regularly relinquish a ClearCase license when it decides I'm not using it.

Sometimes when I save a vi, my ClearCase license has returned to the pool and it has to request one again, so there's a delay, the GUI freezes, I hold my breath (coz sometimes it doesn't crash) and then if it crashes I can usually kill the frozen process.

If source control is the problem for me then there's little I can do other than hope NI discovers a problem with their save routine and fixes it.

So to finally get to the point... are you using source control?