TestStand Deployment 5-7 hours?

[TBone314]

I've been trying to deploy my TestStand system for hte better part of a week, and I am losing patience.  I have deployed a few systems in the last few years, but this one has been difficult.  I am deploying the sequence and the engine/drivers separately.  The engine/drivers deployment builds quickly, so no problems there.  The sequence build takes 5-7 hours to build with most of the time "Updating file Links..."  I have confirmed that all sequence call pathnames specify <Current Sequence File>.  My main sequence has 47 sub-sequences (sequence calls), and my total number of steps is 699.  When built, there are 69 support VIs.  I don't use an ExpressVIs.

I've done previous builds on another system with similar tests, but the sequence-only builds took < 1 hour.

I am looking for suggestions on how to decrease the build time.  Perhaps I am overlooking something that would cause the deployment ot build so slowly. 

Thank you

[TBone314]

I am currently using TestStand 4.2.1 and Labview 2010 with all patches applied.  I will be updating to TestStand 2010, but I'm sure the long build time will remain without making other changes.

[Josh_L1]

Hi TBone314,

Could you give me some information on your pc? For example, what's the processor speed, memory, etc. Could you go into task manager and see how much resource is being used? Have you made any changes to the deployment on the current built? For example, did you by chance check the debuggable option during the build? That could increase your build time. I've also included some links below that might point you in the right direction.

TestStand 4.2 New Features, please make sure that you have selected the proper options under TestStand Deployment Utility Improvements.

http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/370052J-01/tshelp/infotopics/42whatsnew/

Deploying LabVIEW Code modules with NI TestStand

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/9923

TestStand 4.2 Know Issues

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/8681

I hope this helps.

Josh L.

[~jiggawax~ · Accepted solution]

Hey TBone,

A couple thoughts.

Are you using source code control?  If so then I've seen issues similar to yours due to search directories.  The linking took forever because it seemed to be finding VIs through the network path and through the drive that was mapped.  It seemed like it was getting confused and kept relinking the same VI over and over.  Because it saw them at different paths.  Kinda like in a semi-infinite loop.  It was weird.  I refined my search directories to point to specific folders (a pain) but it went a whole lot quicker.

Check your search directories and make sure they are set up correctly.  If you have a directory with tons and tons of children and you have selected search subdirectories then it could take forever.  Also if you have search directories that are pointing to similar folders just in different ways (i.e. through a mapped drive or through a machine name) then you could see weird linking issues.

If you aren't using any dependancies on a network then unplug your ethernet cable and try building.  See what happens then.

Also, I highly recommend deleting any and all older deployments.  Because TestStand doesn't package anything up into binaries (i.e. it just copies VIs over) then what you could have is the deployment finding the VI in the original location as well as a deployment you built previously.  This will cause it to flip out and go into that weird semi-infinite linking loop.  If you don't want to delete them then make for sure that your search directories aren't pointing to old builds. 

As a rule of thumb- never build to a folder where you have dependancies or source code.  Always build to a user folder that is not in your search directories.

Cheers,

[TBone314]

Good morning.

I am building this deployment on a new NI built PXI chassis with Intel Core i7 M620, 4 GB RAM, Windows 7 32-bit.  I am not connected to a network at this time.  This is my first attempt at building deployments on the new PC.  CPU usage is ~30%.  RAM usages is 2.16 GB. I am not using source code control. 

I refined my search directories as suggested, and I deleted my other two deployments (there were none to begin with, but I have a couple now).  The build now takes 10 minutes! 

Lesson learned:  Do not have a search directory w/subfolders option selected and then have another search directory that is a child of the first directory.  Note: I did also remove a couple other search directories, so I can't rule out the possibility that they caused the problem. 

Thank you again,

T