Mac OSX: error -10403 with "SI Config.VI"

[AppleUser]

I'm just running the examples/sound VIs and they are gagging with error -10403.
LabView 7.1.1 and Mac OS 10.3.8 on an Aluminum PowerBook.

Audio playback examples are fine but any that include recording will crash.
Does anyone know what the problem is?

New to LabView,

[johnsold]

Try Sound Quality = Stereo, Rate = 44100, Bits per Sample = 16 bit.

This eliminates the errors on my desktop G4.

I found a microphone and it works.

Lynn

[AppleUser]

Thanks Lynn, using 16-bit stereo at 44 kHz cured the problem with "SI Config.vi" and allowed me to generate a feedback loop with "Simultaneous Sound IO.vi". Great!

Unfortunately the other examples all fail with error -10846 on "SI Read.vi". Using a bigger buffer was enough to cure the problem for "Record Wave File.vi" but I haven't been able to fix the spectrum analyzer examples yet.

My initial question remains: can somebody explain the root cause of these errors?

Given the maturity of NI and LabView I'm saddened to find that the examples that should inspire me have left me with an impression of brittleness.

[Philip_Courtois]

Hi AppleUser,

Are you now getting the -10403 error or the -10846 error?
Have you searched our website for the error codes - there's lots of information about them.

[AppleUser]

Philip,

I am now getting the -10846 error. This behaviour is not isolated to Macs - Windows laptops die with the same error when using the revised audio input parameters (16-bit stereo at 44.1 kHz). Unfortunately, this audio input configuration is the only one that doesn't choke "SI Config.vi" on the Mac.

Interestingly, LabView 6.1 supplies clearly identifies that error -10846 is a buffer overflow, whereas LabView 7.1 merely gives me some nonsense (on Windows and OSX) about "This error code is undefined. No one has [bothered to provide] a description blah blah blah"

I'll agree that there is a lot of information about errors on the website, but I don't find it to be useful information.

I remain,

less than impressed.

[Philip_Courtois]

Hi AppleUser,

I'm sorry that you are experiencing issues with the Sound VIs. However there are a few things I want to let you know.

The error -10846 (with or without the minus) will generate the following description in LabVIEW 7.0, 7.1 and 7.1.1:

"Your application was unable to retrieve data from the background acquisition buffer fast enough so the unretrieved data was overwritten with new data. To prevent this error, you might increase the size of the background acquisition buffer, increase the amount of data you read from it per call to the read function/VI, slow down your acquisition rate, or reduce the number of tasks your computer is performing."

You can confirm this by going to the menu "Help >> Explain Error..." and type in the error number in the "Code" field. Are you sure that it's not a different error code that generates the "This error code is undefined..." description?

The error -10846 means that LabVIEW can't keep up with the sound card when acquiring the sound. Most effective fix for this is to lower the sampling rate.

Also, you mention that you are using 44,100 Hz/16-bit/stereo. This means that you would have to rewire the example VIs since they are wired for 22,050 Hz/8-bit/mono. I'm especially referring to the wiring of the four sound-outputs from the "Snd Read Waveform.vi". They each correspond to a sampling configuration so when changing the sample resolution (number of bits) or the number of channels (mono/stereo) you will have to use another output from this VI. Remember that when using stereo instead of mono, you will have to split the 2D-array (both channels) into 1D-arrays (each channel) and then analyze each 1D-array separately.

Please let me know exactly from what change the errors start occurring. It seems that you are able to get the standard examples to work and only get the errors when changing the sampling configuration, right? If so, please apply one change at a time and let me know when error occurs the first time.


PS: The description for the error -10403 that you previously received is:

"The specified device does not support the requested action (the driver recognizes the device, but the action is inappropriate for the device)."

[AppleUser]

Philip,

Please read the attached screen capture that was generated from an installation of LabView 7.1 on a Windows XP system, and suspend your any beliefs that what I say is the product of incompetence or imagination. The explanation of "error -10846" is clearly missing on this installation.

The explanation of "error -10403" is also missing (at least on my OS X installation). As I explained, that error is a natural consequence of executing any of the demos that use audio input on my Mac so, from my perspective, it seems that LabView 7.1 is poorly interfaced with the audio frameworks of OS X.

I will continue twisting and rewiring the demos to see if I can make them all work.

Thanks for your reply.

Cheers,

Jeff

[Philip_Courtois]

Dear AppleUser,

You are absolutely right about the error codes that you are receiving. I have checked and found out that R&D is aware of the issues with the -10403 and -10846 errors on MacOS and are working to fix this for future versions of LabVIEW. I apologize for not catching this earlier.

Please let me know if you are able to avoid the errors by increasing the buffer size or by other methods.

Thanks for all your information!