hp33250 driver initialization error

[Bob_Albern]

I have an HP/Agilent 33250 Arbitrary Wavefrom Generator and am using the hp33120 driver. We have been using this driver for several years without a problem. Last week, an engineer in my group started having trouble running the 'hp33120 Initialize.vi' routine standalone. If the initialize is run as a subroutine call from another vi, it works fine. But if it is run standalone, we get the error:

"hp33120a Initialize With Options.vi<ERR>
Driver Status:  (Hex 0xBFFA000A) Check that the library name (hp33120a_32.dll) and prefix (hp33120a) are correct."

The error code translates to -1074135030.

The last change to LabVIEW software was in February with the 2009 update. I have, of course, checked the names and both are correct. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Bob

[Troy · Accepted solution]

Interesting.  Has it worked since the update to LV2009?

I am guessing you are using the IVI drivers.  I personally have never been a big fan of the IVI drivers (have more trouble with them than they are worth).  You might try donwloading the current version from IDNET.  I use the 33120s quite a bit and checked the current driver.  It does directly support the 33250.  

[Bob_Albern]

Yes, it has worked since the 2009 update. And, yes I am using the IVI driver and agree with you, they are more trouble than they are worth. This problem appears to be with an uninitialized global in the "hp33120 initialize with options" subVI that the Initialize vi calls. Since I do not have visibility into the DLL, I can't debug it. (I know, there are tools to debug things like this but I haven't used them.)

I downloaded the latest driver and installed it. The VI now runs standalone. This still begs the question as to why the driver stopped working out of the blue. It's probably related to a network change but our IT people won't fess up to doing anything over the weekend. 

To confuse the issue a bit more, we distribute instrument drivers with each project (a long story related to crosslinking). This means each project should be independent but this problem showed up on all testers and projects simultaneously. The new driver did a forced install on the C: drive but it still fixed this problem. Theoretically each project should not access the version in instr.lib but they clearly do. Chalk up another win for LabVIEW tendrils!

I consider this a workaround rather than a fix. In any case, we are back up and running.

[NathanT]

Hello Bob,

       If you don't need the interchangeability and other advanced features that IVI offers, you should consider using the Agilent 33xxx Series LabVIEW Plug and Play (project-style) instrument driver.  Because all of the code is native LabVIEW code, you can debug and modify the code as much as you would like.  If the problem showed up on all of your systems at the same time, you might want to look into the application being dependant on a component that is installed on the network.

Cheers,

NathanT