insane object with a symptom

[tst]

Well, just to see that you're not the only one with problems, look here.

[RudyRed]

Thanks for that reference, tst.  Now I feel almost fortunate that I'm not that guy!  I think he's got a worse problem than mine.

[RudyRed]

Got it!  Of course, I don't know what the problem source was; but, I used a strict control reference instead of wiring the cluster control into and out of the subVI.  What got me to this solution was deleting the local variable of the cluster control that I had been wiring to the output of the subVI.  When I did just that, the data changes appeared in the probe on the wire going from the cluster control itself to the input terminal on the subVI.  Now the cluster control is not wired to anything and its reference is wired into the subVI, which takes care of writing back to the cluster control internally; the subVI no longer contains copies of the cluster control.

The first thing I tried today was creating a fresh subVI containing only a copy of the cluster control to connect to the terminal in the connector pane.  Still data changes did not appear on the wire.  It was then that I noticed a kind of "circularity" that reminded me of a message link provided by tst (thanks again) to a message someone had posted elsewhere in this forum, in that the subVI accepted an input wired from the cluster control and outputted to a local variable of that same cluster control.  I had taken pains to verify that the presence of the local variable was not masking the probes indications, but I hadn't considered that this situation might contribute to LabVIEW's confusion.  And, again, this code snippet has been in the VI for years, virtually unchanged; so I still think the real source of this issue lies in LabVIEW's inability to properly resolve a peculiar confluence of factors.  Any one of these factors not being present, there would be no issue.  Only LabVIEW (not its developers ) knows for sure how these factors interact to cause the problem.

Thank-you to everyone who contributed to the discussion.  The process of articulating the issue and considering the perspectives of all the participants was crucial to maintaining my focused effort to solve the problem.  Though the critical point on the solution pathway was an accident, it was by the kind of luck that happens when you work hard towards a specific goal--in a word, serendipity.

Now all that remains is to put a waveform chart back in!  Wish me luck, eh, serendipity.

Message Edited by RudyRed on 12-08-2005 10:13 AM