NI-DAQmx for Labview 2018 on Mac OS X

[balcs]

I have just installed Labview 2018 on a Mac and am now attempting to get all the drivers correctly installed. For Labview 2017, this page:

https://www.ni.com/en/support/downloads/drivers/download.ni-daqmx-base.html#326059

has packages to update the latest NI-DAQmx driver (which looks to be 2015) to Labview 2016 and 2017, but not 2018. Is there a corresponding update package for LV2018?

[pamgomez]

Hi,

Which drivers exactly do you need to install besides NI-DAQmx driver?

Pamela Gómez
Applications Engineering
National Instruments
www.ni.com/support

[balcs]

Hi Pam, 

I think I misspoke slightly. What I am actually trying to do at present is communicate with a USB-6008 usinv LV2018 on a Mac. I successfully installed the NI-DAQmx base package (v15.0), and the standalone NI-DAQmx programs that were installed with that package can communicate with the 6008. Now what I need is the DAQ tools/VIs for Labview 2018 -- the Measurement I/O tools panel is empty and the example VIs don't appear to be present. I assume this is what the add-on packages for LV2016 and 2017 fix, but of course they won't install for LV2018 without modification. So the question is how to fix that. 

thanks,

[pamgomez]

Hi, 

Please check this white paper, it should be useful.

http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/371361R-01/lvhelp/troubleshooting_guide/#missingDriversMac 

Regards,

Pamela Gómez
Applications Engineering
National Instruments

[RavensFan]

There is still a problem with that.  It doesn't seem to lead to DAQmx Base 18.0, only 15.0

Locating Missing SubVIs, Palettes, and Property Nodes (macOS)

LabVIEW may not be able to locate certain subVIs, palettes, or Property Nodes for the following reasons: You did not install the LabVIEW 2018 versions of the drivers used by your VIs. To communicate with hardware devices, LabVIEW 2018 requires that the LabVIEW 2018 versions of the related device drivers be installed. If you do not update your drivers to run with LabVIEW 2018, the associated driver VIs, palettes, and Property Nodes are not available, making it impossible for LabVIEW to communicate with the device. To correct this problem, reinstall the related drivers from one of the following sources: For the latest version of the driver for any NI device—Download the latest version of the driver from ni.com/drivers. For NI-DAQmx Base—Download the NI-DAQmx Base Software at ni.com. For third-party devices—Search for and download drivers for third-party instruments on the Instrument Driver Network at ni.com. Your VIs require files from the user.lib directory of a previous version of LabVIEW. If you created custom VIs in a previous version of LabVIEW, you must copy those VIs to the user.lib directory of LabVIEW 2018 to continue using them as subVIs.

That link I made larger takes you to: http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/14480 

That page has Download NI-DAQmx Base

The title of that page is    NI-DAQmx Base 15.0 - Windows 8 32-bit/8 64-bit/7 32-bit/7 64-bit/Vista 32-bit/Vista 64-bit/XP 32-bit

That has a ReadMe  readme.htm  which has this link Support in NI-DAQmx Base 15.0.0

Go there and you have

Support in NI-DAQmx Base 15.0.0

Application Software and Programming Language Support

The following table lists the application software versions supported by NI-DAQmx Base 15.0.0:

NI Application Software	Versions Supported by NI-DAQmx Base 15.0.0
LabVIEW	2012, 2012 SP1, 2013, 2013 SP1, 2014, 2014 SP1, 2015

No LabVIEW 18.

[balcs]

OK, I have solved this, sort of. This page:

http://www.ni.com/download/ni-daqmx-base-15.0/5648/en/ 

under 'supporting files' has this link:

• NI-DAQmx Base Addon for LabVIEW 2017 

I downloaded that, which is a zip-file that unzips into a directory. The directory has an install shell script that you are supposed to run. All it does is place the other files in the directory into the appropriate places in /Applications/National Instruments/Labview 20XX. I edited the install script to replace "2017" with "2018" and ran it. This placed all the included files into /Applications/National Instruments/Labview 2018 64-bit/. 

Then I started Labview 2018 and found that the correct tools were in the measurement I/O palette and the DAQmx example VIs are in the examples folder where they are supposed to be. I was able to communicate with the USB-6008 using the appropriate example VI. 

So basically what I did was shove the 2017 extension files into Labview 2018. So who knows if they all work with 2018, but this appears to work for my application. 

Basically it appears that someone at NI just has to check that everything in the 2017 package works with 2018 and change the install script. 

[SteveAxe]

I performed a fresh installation of LabVIEW 2018 and NI-DAQ Base 15.0 plus the NI-DAQmx Base for LabVIEW 2017 additions, using the shell script in Terminal with the script modified to replace 2017 with 2018.  I also installed NI-VISA_18.0.0, and for good measure NI-488.2 18.0 even though I'm not using GPIB. My hardware is a USB-6218.  It works, sometimes.  When it doesn't work, sometimes restarting LabVIEW fixes it.  Sometimes just running NIvisaic/app or lsdaq.app, or unplugging and replugging the hardware wakes it up.  But not reliably.  Otherwise I have to reboot the Mac.  It's very flaky.

One anomaly I noticed is when I run the NI-VISA Server it tells me I'm missing at least one passport and that I should run the NI-VISA Server configuration utility.  But when I do that it looks like all the passports are checked and doesn't indicate that anything is missing.

I would love for NI to tell me exactly what I need to do to get this to work.  It should be simple, and understandable.  If it isn't they should put resources on it to make it so.  Do they really expect me to understand the correct settings of my "Bulk out Pipe" and my "Bulk in Pipe"??