System crash on Windows XP

[billinares]

We have a Windows LabView-based application that communicates with our board over RS232. We seem to be experiencing problems with the Visa drives simptoms being the following:

1. System crashes while triying to establish communication with board. This problem occurs with Windows XP while using a serial-USB addapter. The crash occurs if serial communication is already running when application on PC is started.

2. Visa drives do not work on Korian version of windows.

Latest Visa version seem to help out a bit (though not completely) with first problem. We do not know if it solves the second.

Thank you

[Dennis_Knutson]

You cannot have two different applications accessing the serial port. Windows will not allow that. Updating your version of VISA should not have changed a thing. If you have VISA communication started first, you would find that a terminal emulation program such as Hyperterminal or Procomm could not connect. You should be able to trap the error that occurs when the LabVIEW application tries to establish communication and then shutdwon the other application using the serial port.

[Joel Kolstad]

"billinares" <x@no.email> wrote in message
news:1140077610234-325624@exchange.ni.com...
> We have a Windows LabView-based application that communicates with our board
> over RS232. We seem to be experiencing problems with the Visa drives
> simptoms being the following:
> &nbsp;
> 1. System crashes while triying to establish communication with board. This
> problem occurs with Windows XP while using a serial-USB addapter. The crash
> occurs if serial communication is already running when application on PC is
> started.

This is more likely to be a driver bug in the USB<-->Serial adapter than in
LabView, although... can you tell us which version of LabView you're using?
And who the manufacturer is of the _IC_ used in the USB<-->Serial adapter?

I have successfully designed & used adapters using FTDI brand ICs with LabView
and VISA. In fact, in general I've found that FTDI tends to work a little
more reliably than many other brands. They have had bugs over time, but one
of their benefits is that few adapter manufacturers make much effort to "hide"
the FTDI brand from you, and you can therefore easily download the latest
drivers directly from FTDI's website.