Remote PXI says "No software installed" - MAX says there is

[joedowdle]

Yes, I did enable it.  It's not a huge concern at the moment as right now I'm just trying to get everything on the machine upgraded to the 2011 licenses that we have.  I am going to be temporarily using just the RT part of it with a seperate host PC for the time being so once I get everything installed the Hypervisor portion will not be used for the time being.  I just want to be thorough in my upgrade and make sure it all works right.  Thanks for the help though.

[joedowdle]

On second thought, maybe this isn't quite done.  So like I said I have been able to get everything on the RT side of things upgraded to 2011 programs and drivers.  And as I said before, I want to just use the RT side of this PXI as a remote system to another PC.  So I connect the RT ethernet port from the PXI to the ethernet port of the PC via crossover cable and it connects just fine.  Here's where I don't understand what is happening...

If I boot the PXI controller into Hypervisor mode (both Windows and RT running seperately), the host PC that I am using reacognizes the chassis and all the devices in the slots.  It gives me a system state in MAX of "Connected - running," shows that there is software installed, and everything appears good.  Note that where is says model in MAX is lists it as "PXI (Hypervisor)."

Now if I turn off the PXI controller, go into the BIOS settings, and set to boot to LabVIEW RT it loads up the same screen I was getting before that states that there is a boot error and that no software has been installed.  Clearly that's not the case... at least from what I can tell.  Obvisouly I have installed software.  The same thing is said in MAX on the host PC.  It says that it's connected but that no software is installed, but if you click and expand the Software tree it lists all the same software that shows up when in Hypervisor mode.  None of the devices in the slots of the PXI show up either.

Do you know why this might be happening?  The only thing I can think of to try, which will have to wait until next week, is that I am connected to the RT through the ethernet PXI card rather than the ethernet port in the controller when booting in LabVIEW RT mode.  Would that make a difference in recognizing what is in the PXI chassis since technically the controller is what "runs" it?

Any insight that could be given to help me out next week would be appreciated, thanks.

[Texas_Diaz]

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@joedowdle wrote:

Now if I turn off the PXI controller, go into the BIOS settings, and set to boot to LabVIEW RT it loads up the same screen I was getting before that states that there is a boot error and that no software has been installed.  Clearly that's not the case... at least from what I can tell.  Obvisouly I have installed software.  The same thing is said in MAX on the host PC.  It says that it's connected but that no software is installed, but if you click and expand the Software tree it lists all the same software that shows up when in Hypervisor mode.  None of the devices in the slots of the PXI show up either.

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I know people don't like to hear these words, but what you're seeing is "expected".  How do I explain this simply?  The PXI Hypervisor version of LabVIEW Real-Time Operating System IS NOT a "stand-alone" version of LabVIEW Real-Time; it cannot run without the Windows Hypervisor active (this isn't technically correct, but let's assume it is for the sake of simplicity).  However, the PXI Hypervisor version of LabVIEW Real-Time does use the same LabVIEW application layer, the same hardware drivers, and the same application drivers. 

When you went into the BIOS and set the boot mode to LabVIEW RT, the boot loader in the BIOS expects to see the "stand-alone" version of the LabVIEW Real-Time Operating System.  Since the stand-alone version is not installed, you get the boot error and the message saying no software is installed (and when it says this, it doesn't necessarily mean "NO" software is installed, but the LabVIEW Real-Time OS it expects to see is not installed). 

Finally, MAX doesn't necessarily show you "everything" that is or isn't installed.  For instance, MAX doesn't actually show you if the OS is installed, it only shows you the high-level applications and high-level drivers (like LabVIEW, DAQ, etc...).  It only does this by looking at the hard drive and determining if the applications have been installed - but it doesn't know what context that software was installed in, and whether or not the dependencies of that software (like the Operating System) are installed and operational.

So, to summarize, when you run in "Hypervisor" mode you install a non-stand-alone version of LabVIEW Real-Time, one that IS NOT COMPATIBLE with running the PXI controller from the BIOS in "LabVIEW Real-time" mode.  When you see MAX telling you software is installed, that's because the application files were installed in the hypervisor mode - however, you can't see that the stand-alone version of the OS is missing for you to be able to run software in stand-alone RT mode (though the BIOS). 

You cannot generally swap between Windows/Hypervisor and LabVIEW-RT mode without formatting the hard drive (through MAX) and reinstalling software.

-Danny

[joedowdle]

Thank you for that explanation, that makes sense, sort of.  Well, at least why it won't work, but in general, it doesn't make sense that it would have a "different" RT with Hypervisor than without.  You'd think it would be the same.  In any case, I appreciate it and now that I know I have everything working properly I can get on with the rest of my work.  Thanks.

[joedowdle]

One more question... If I use an external host PC (other than the Windows side of the 8110) while the PXI is booted into Hypervisor mode, can I use the RT side of it just like any other RT target without Hypervisor?  That's what I am trying to do because it just makes development/testing a lot easier for me.  It seems to work fine for running VIs in LabVIEW on the target, but I keep having connection issues when I try to load VeriStand system def filesn and I'm wondering if this might be a source of this problem.  I haven't been able to find a solution yet; I get rid of one error and another appears.

[Texas_Diaz]

Yes, if you have an external PC you can use it as an RT Desktop PC (like a "normal mode" PXI but on a PC).  If you're having "connection issues", make sure there's enough memory and CPU on the target, generally connection issues loading files are a result of poor memory/disk performance and/or overloading the CPU (generally caused by timed loops doing things they shouldn't be doing, like File I/O and Networking).  

If you find that using an RT Desktop PC works for you, don't forget the license.

-Danny

[joedowdle]

Thanks for the help once again.  I altered the memory allocation and that seems to have fixed that issue.

Eventually (I think) this PXI contoller will be converted to a full time RT target and put into a bigger chassis with more I/O.  Right now I'm using it as a small development space in order to avoid "breaking" the larger chassis that is running without VeriStand and without RT.