LabVIEW
Problems installing 2013 from 4-DVD set
Solved!
Bob,
I suspect you moved from "LabVIEW" to "Developer Suite" possibly a new Software Lease Agreement.
That is a guess on my part. What OS?
I went through a few reeboots on my part too but, many things eventually activated. Did you use the License Manager to assist you? What browser did you use to activate? And, when activating that many products, what speed of internet connection did you have available?
I have found that you need a really high speed connection to get 40 or so codes through the automated system.
Certain "Greek" problems can inhibit activation as well in my experience. (Beta would be the operative letter
)
A "Call me now!" shout out to your NI Team might be in order.
@JÞB wrote:
Bob,
I suspect you moved from "LabVIEW" to "Developer Suite" possibly a new Software Lease Agreement.
That is a guess on my part. What OS?
I went through a few reeboots on my part too but, many things eventually activated. Did you use the License Manager to assist you? What browser did you use to activate? And, when activating that many products, what speed of internet connection did you have available?
I have found that you need a really high speed connection to get 40 or so codes through the automated system.
Certain "Greek" problems can inhibit activation as well in my experience. (Beta would be the operative letter
A "Call me now!" shout out to your NI Team might be in order.
Good questions.
All of our distributions (for the past decade) have been the Academic Site License, which (I think) includes the full Development Suite. Until LabVIEW 2012, the kit contained several one-or-two CD/DVD "sets" with names like "Core Components", "Options" (subdivided into Control and Embedded Systems, and Signal Processing and Communication), "Extended Development", and "Device Drivers". It was "natural" to do the installation in piece-meal fashion, as putting in, say, the Core Components disk didn't let you choose Real-Time. However, the past two years the kit has consisted of only two parts, a 4-DVD group labeled "DVD x of 4" and a Device Drivers DVD. When you put in DVD 1 of 4 and run Setup, you have all of the components available to install at the same time, leading to the temptation (to which I fell prey) to simply specify everything all at once and let LabVIEW manage the entire installation process. This appears to have been a "mistake" on my part, as doing it "all-at-once" led to a flawed Development system, not only for LabVIEW 2013 (newly installed), but for the earlier, formerly-working versions.
When I describe the "All-at-Once" installation, I should note that this does not include Device Drivers -- I always do this last, and often times not right away (like a day or two later).
All of my machines are running Windows 7 Pro, 64-bit (though I'm installing the 32-bit version of LabVIEW, to the best of my knowledge -- certainly most code goes into the Program Files (x86) folder).
My experience with the "All-at-Once" installation process is that it prompts you for the various disks (in my case, it asked for disk 2, 3, and 4, in that order), At the end of the disk-shuffling, it asks me to Reboot (and I do), then goes through an Activation step (which can take two or three passes before all the products are activated). I'm not activating all that much -- my 2013 build was Core LabVIEW, Real-Time Module, Vision Development Module, Control Design and Simulation Module, Report Generation Toolkit, and DAQmx. I did not deliberately run License Manager -- I just started LabVIEW and "followed the directions" (I was prompted to click on Activate). My PCs now mostly use Chrome as the browser, though my Laptop uses Firefox. Our network at work is at least 100MB Ethernet (the campus network), with Gigabit also available, while at home, I use a high-speed Cable Modem. Activation never seems to take more than 10-15 seconds.
This is definitely the "Release Candidate" software -- I waited until I got the DVD set to do (most of) the installs of 2013. Ironically, the PC in my collection that I call the "Good PC" (because it does not have the problems I describe) is the one where I downloaded individual modules from NI right after NI Week and installed them (necessarily!) One-at-a-Time, as opposed to the "All-at-Once" scenario I "fell into" with the Distribution Kit.
I'm not sure what a "Call me now" Shout-out to my NI Team means! I have been corresponding closely with an NI Applications Engineer about my findings, and I think he "gets it". I've sent him a description of the NI Services that are started and stopped at each step of a (ultimately successful!) installation, as well as a description of the Services that are present following an "All-at-Once" installation (the majority of the Services are missing). I even tried a "hand-patch" to reinstall one, the NI Service Locator (Service), which "brought back" a few services, but not all of them.
Since I'm being so descriptive, let me tell you when I realized I had a problem. If you install LabVIEW 2013, you may notice that MAX has a new, very stylish Logo. The first time I ran the "new MAX" and tried to connect to my PXI chassis, the connection went fine, but MAX refused to stop "Searching for connections", and wouldn't let me interact with it, even to close it. After 5 minutes of waiting, I stopped it using Task Manager. This happened on one of my two Work PCs -- the other one, which I call the Good PC, performed as expected, finding the PXI, looking around for a few more seconds, then giving me back control.
Further investigation, with an NI Applications Engineer on the phone with me (and running multiple tests, including sniffing out Ethernet packets), showed that MAX (on the Bad PC) would eventually "stop looking", but needed 1000 seconds to do so. As it happened, the Bad PC developed other hardware problems, so I was able to "retire" it and get a new Dell (I7) replacement.
Last week, I reinstalled Windows 7, Office, and other "tools" software, then installed LabVIEW. I did "One-at-a-Time" installations of LabVIEW 2010 and 2011 (the only method available), an "All-at-Once" installation of 2012 (identical to what I had done on previous PCs, including the Good PC), and an "All-at-Once" installation of 2013. I then tested MAX -- took 1000 seconds to give me back control, again!
Another call to Enginneering Support. That was when I learned that NI had "heard about" other installations with problems like mine, and had developed a "patch" to re-install the Service Locator Service. When I did this, it actually did help -- the 1000 second delay decreased 33-fold to only 30 seconds. However, when I tried to deploy code I was developing to my PXI, it took over a minute and a half for deployment to begin (the deployment itself took less than 5 seconds), whereas the "Good PC" had a delay of maybe half a second.
I've now succeeded in installing LabVIEW 2013 by doing it one component at a time (and allowing reboots, if it asks). MAX now "releases" the connections within 5 seconds, the same as the "Good PC". I just realized I hadn't (yet) tested deployment of my code (all still in LabVIEW 2012) to the PXI, but I just did, and, like the Good PC, it now starts deployment in a fraction of a second, and completes in about 5 seconds (guesstimate).
I posted this note here just in case other LabVIEW 2013 users experience the same strange behavior that I encountered when doing my All-at-Once installations. I have also brought this to NI's attention through my very helpful and extensive interactions with the AE who has been working with me on this Service Request. Is there another avenue I should explore?
BS
Thank you for the detailed report.
Just to clairfy "Call me Now!" refers to this link found in many places on NI.com
One click and your phone rings. A great way to get in contact with a NI AE. It sounds like you have been diligently working with them to improve the upgrade experience. Thanks
