Session for GC1290C could not be configured

[whatisthealias]

I'm trying to capture video from GC1290C GigE camera: it refuses to work in Labview, while original AVT software works all right. Camera is shown in the list of NI-IMAQdx devices in MAX. Being selected for the first time, it displays "The session for your device could not be configured" message, further trials end with "The camera is already in use". Vision Acquisition Express VI also detects error, when the camera is selected, but gives no detail (result of the operation is "The following error occured while configuring the acquisition:" and nothing more).

My software versions are:

Labview 2009f3

Vision 8.6.4

IMAQdx 3.7

[SamiBenF]

Is the camera selected in MAX while you try to use it in LabVIEW ?

And basically, are you able to use the camera in MAX ?

[whatisthealias]

Hi.

Actually, I wasn't able to get anywhere in MAX. It seems to receive XML from camera, put it in All users' folder, but then configuration setup error ruins the whole process. I never see camera attributes in MAX.

Tests in Labview (IMAQdx example) and MAX were separated from each other, since anyone of them locks camera session for itself. So, when I launch MAX - Labview is not loaded, and vice versa.

[BlueCheese]

Would you be able to use the AVT software to retrieve the firmware version of your GC1290C? We should be able to try reproducing this here....

Keep in mind the AVT software (traditionally) goes through an entirely different access mechanism than the GenICam interface that non-AVT software uses, so that would likely help explain the difference in behavior.

Eric

[BlueCheese]

I tried reproducing this here with a GC1290C and their latest 1.36 firmware available on their website. Everything worked fine for me with IMAQdx 3.7 and MAX, LabVIEW 2010, and Vision Acquisition Express VIs. Perhaps your firmware version is older and is causing problems?

Eric

[whatisthealias]

Firmware version is detected as 1.36.0, that shouldn't cause the problem. I used ProcessMonitor by former SysInternals to overlook the camera initialization procedure in MAX, and noticed the line:

9:45:01,7801418 NIMax.exe 4364 CreateFile C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Äîêóìåíòû\National Instruments\NI-IMAQdx\Data\XML\prosilica_022186A_1.36.xml PATH NOT FOUND Desired Access: Generic Read, Disposition: Open, Options: Synchronous IO Non-Alert, Non-Directory File, Attributes: N, ShareMode: Read, Write, AllocationSize: n/a

Though, the XML file already existed at the moment. Now I think the trouble may be in russian letters in the path.

Otherwise, the most noticeable difference between AVT and NI software is in the libraries they use to access camera - AVT relies on PvAPI.dll, while MAX uses GenAPI (and IMAQdx goes the third way with niimaqdx.dll). If language is not the case, then trouble should be with the libraries.

[BlueCheese]

Interesting, it is possible the common GenApi component that IMAQdx (and all generic GigE Vision software) uses is having some trouble with some localized directory names. Given that there are quite a few companies that maintain this GenApi software that use other localizations such as Japanese, it seems odd that Russian would be an issue. I'll see if we can reproduce this here. Do you have any hints at how to reproduce that Russian user name? Does it require a localized version of Windows?

In the meantime, one suggestion I have would be to try changing the directory IMAQdx is caching those XML files. You can try adjusting the location via the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\niimaqdxk\Parameters\XMLFilePath

Note that the directory pointed to must be readable and writable by whichever user permissions are used for the process launching IMAQdx (often "standard user" when UAC is enabled in Vista and later).

Eric

[whatisthealias]

Hello again.

My version of WinXP was localized one, and I believe creating russian paths will require quite a work in other versions (since MUI doesn't help in this case). Pity I didn't know about registry key earlier - now I have already tried installing all the LabVIEW things on english XP, and had seen camera working in MAX and in the LabVIEW examples with Express VI. Didn't know exactly what fixed the problem. Maybe I'll try the registry fix advice a bit later to see if it works as you suggested.