what is causing error -70038(NIMC_internalSoftwareError) from my PXI-7330 board?

[jcarmody]

Here's why I think there's a problem with my motion controller:

• I saw error -70038(NIMC_internalSoftwareError) when I tried to initialize it in MAX
  
• One of my motors is occasionally noisy - this happened yesterday, and has happened in the past.  Sounds like something is restricting it's motion, but I don't believe that's what's happening.
• Another motor is occasionally not responding move commands.
  
• Can't initialize board (in MAX)
• couldn't do it yesterday - got error
  
• it worked fine this morning, and I recall having this problem a long time ago - perhaps it has something to do with the board sitting over night? 
  
• Need to initialize in MAX - wasn't always this way.  This began about a month (or so) ago, but I was able to initialize in MAX.  I had been initializing the boards using:
• Clear Power Up Status.flx
• Initialize Controller.flx
  

I've seen these problems before (several months ago), but they disappeared after a while so I assumed that my software was causing the issue.  Perhaps it was/is?  Maybe, except that I couldn't initialize the board last night (even after restarting the PXI controller - without cycling power) but could this morning (power was off all night).

Do these symptoms point to a hardware or software problem?

[Wes_P]

It sounds more like a software problem to me.  There are a couple of things that you could try:

1. Make sure that your motion controller has the latest firmware.  It is possible that your firmware is corrupted.
2. Install the latest version of NI-Motion.  Make sure that no NI Motion hardware is connected to your computer when you install NI-Motion (this includes PCI/PXI boards).   If you previously installed  NI-Motion with your hardware attached, remove the hardware and uninstall NI-Motion.  Then delete the data folder in the directory: ...\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\National Instruments\MAX.  You may want to back this folder up before deleting if you have configurations that you don't want to lose.  Then, reinstall NI-Motion, shutdown the computer, and replace the motion board.

Refer to KnowledgeBase 251F8GOA: How Do I Upgrade NI-Motion Firmware when Upgrading NI-Motion?  for detailed information about upgrading firmware.
Refer to this link on www.ni.com to download the latest NI-Motion driver.

If your system won't allow you to use the lastest version of NI-Motion, which version are you using?
When you get these errors, are you working exclusively in MAX or in LabVIEW?  Or are you making some calls in LabVIEW and then operating in MAX (or Vice Versa)?

Wes P
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[JaromNelson]

I am getting a similar error on a PCI-7344 board

-4679 Internal Software Error    This is an internal software error. Please contact National Instruments.

Any clues on this one?

Following the advice above, I uninstalled the card, uninstalled NI-Motion 7.5, and installed NI-Motion 7.6, and then re-installed the cards.  After that, I updated the firmware on the card to the latest version in NI MAX.  I still have the same error.

[JaromNelson]

I should clarify that the error happens when I call the flex_initialize_controller method in the FlexMS32.lib library.  Then if I initialize through NI MAX, I am able to use the card as I would expect.

[jcarmody]

Wes,

That seems to have fixed my problem.  I'll continue to test, but the biggest symptom (needing to init controllers in MAX) has gone away.  I noticed another symptom (before updating NI Motion & the firmware) in that one of my motors would continuously move, very slowly, even after my program told everything to shut down.  I'm hoping that this was fixed with the sw upgrades.  We'll see.

Thank you for your help.

Jim

[Wes_P]

Jarom,

Are you using LabVIEW or a text-based language?  Could you be a little more specific about the call that you make that brings the error?

Wes P
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[JaromNelson]

I have a C++ DLL making calls to the FlexMS32.lib  My application (in Java) makes the calls to the C++ DLL, which sets up the parameters to call the FlexMS32.lib.  The generation of the C++ dll is done through SWIG, and seems to be working fine for all other calls to the interface.  The only complication I can see with the flex_initialize_controller call is that a char* is the parameter to specify the settings to use, but that seems to be transformed correctly (US-ASCII encoding).

Ahh, I see my problem.  In the transformation from a Java String to a char*, there was no provision to add the null termination to the string.  After adding that, everything seems to work fine.

Thanks for your help.

[BVSmith]

If the firmware is corrupted, how do you re-download it?  It doesn't seem possible from MAX. One can only download the firmware if there is a newer version.

[Kristoff2]

BVSmith,

The following article shows how you would go about updating your firmware.  Please let us know if this does not work for you.

Motion Assistant Gives NI-Motion Driver Softrware/Firmware Incompatibility Error

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/7F3718385965CA5D862576C800457B60

Regards,

Sam K

Applications Engineer

National Instruments

[BVSmith]

Sam,

But, as I said, if your firmware is corrupt and you already have the latest firmware installed and the latest

NI-Motion software, you cannot update the firmware again.  The "Update Firmware" button is not enabled.

What do you do then?

Brian Smith

ALS Controls Group

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory