Cat

Excellent! Both the stability part and the choices for development in LV 2011.

Good point. I should have been a little more specific when I said an option was to write another program to do it for you. There's an idea on IE that would take care of this.

I'm assuming that when you say you have code for your application, it means you have built your code into an application (*.exe)?? Otherwise, that's a completely different question... There is no way to get the LabVIEW Installation Builder to automatically create an installation that will "install" anything other than your LabVIEW components. You can have it copy the driver files to someplace during the installation, but if they need anything more than this to work, you will need to then "install" the drivers manually. Or write some sort of program to do it, but either way it's a separate action. You might want to take a look at a stand-alone installation builder like InstallShield . It is very powerful and might be able to perform multiple installations. I used to use it before NI included the Installer in LabVIEW.

The depths of Mark's patience are amazing. Forget LabVIEW Champion... I was going to nominate him for LV Saint.

Cool! Kind of like reverse beam-forming. Hmm...

Here's another reason I don't visit IE very much: There are 1400+ ideas, and only 1 is "In Development". There are 20+ ideas with over 150 kudos. All marked "New". Most over a year old. So there doesn't seem to be a lot of point in submitting ideas or voting on them. Yes, I know 10 or so ideas were implimented in LV2010. But that left a whole lot of ideas with a whole lot of user support behind. In reality, I can't image the LV user base is really being ignored like this. Maybe the "Status" field needs to be updated more often? Or maybe there need to be more options than just "In Development" and "Being Ignored" "New"? Maybe "Under Consideration"? "Not in a Million Years"? Just more feedback, and updated more often, as to whether or not NI is actually paying attention to what gets posted in IE.

I've been fighting with a USB hub arbitrarily changing COM ports on me lately. Probably not your problem, but is there any way for you to directly connect the serial ports and not go thru the USB hub (might need a crossover cable)? Eliminate potential hardware issues...

No problem. I do it all the time myself.

Ack. I didn't know that. I'm still waiting to see what Oracle does about service contracts on my ancient Solaris versions. So far, no good news is on the horizon... Yes, I've told the PM we need to figure out what kind of outputs we want this database to provide to us before we decide what data to put into it and in what format. So far he's buying into this. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

Jeez! I'm not that old. And I take back anything nice I've ever said about you. If there was anything. So there. :P

I need a "pouting" emoticon... [pout] I can't approve edits of my own posts anymore. How am I supposed to be post-posting anal-retentive about my spleling? [/pout] It was fun being a Mod while it lasted...

Yeah, MYSQL Workbench does look pretty kewl! I just need to get to work on this before the PM farms it out to someone who could probably do it all in a day.

Phillip: Thanks for the book recommendation. That's one of the books I was considering, but when the list of possibilities got too huge, was when I decided to ask for help here. And it comes on the Kindle, too! asbo: I was looking at SQLite today (mostly because I saw Shaun's toolkit). I didn't realize it doesn't support network access. While I may not need network access at first, if this becomes a widely-used tool, I definitely will. Shaun: I like the open source aspect of MySQL. All: Yes! I agree completely that the design is the important part. I have a very large vision for this, and need to figure out how to bite off pieces that are small enough to be doable, but then meld back into the whole when I put it all together. As well as making it easy enough to use that I'm not the only person who can figure out how to use it. Thanks for your input!

So, I need to design and write a database. This database will basically be for tracking multiple types of boxes and components, and their various locations, test results, actions, etc. I used MS Access a little a zillion years ago -- it looks nothing like what I remember, so I'm in essence starting from scratch. I'm looking for recommendations for books or websites on the fundamentals of both database design and actual coding. I don't even know what flavor of database I want to use, so if anyone has some thoughts on how to go about picking one, that would be helpful, also. I believe the software of choice around here is MS SQL Server, but that dosn't mean that's what I have to use (but it does mean I could probably get some internal help, if necessary). Cat

Maybe some of us just don't think about it very often? I know it's not as high-tech as RSS and Facebook and Twitter, but how about just posting a link and reminder on LAVA once a month that the IE is out there?

Thanks for all the congrats! No cake, but bread and circuses for everyone!

Phillip is correct. Open MAX Goto Tools --> NI-VISA --> Visa Options Select "Passports" Check "NIVisaTulip.dll" Refresh/Save Exit Max Or at least that's how it works in 8.6.1f1

It's called a "breakpoint". Right-click on a wire. Select Breakpoint --> Set breakpoint. This will create the little red dot. Program execution will stop at that little red dot so you can check the value of the file path indicator that you are about to read, and check that that file actually exists. Where ever it is that you are reading the file that is throwing the error. I can't tell you any more than that since when I downloaded the 3 links you sent, they opened with multiple files missing. When I tried to go to the website where you said all the code was, I got an HTTP 404 error (page not found).

I'll try again... You need to figure out *why* you're getting this error. When I've gotten it in the past, it's generally meant I haven't created the file/path correctly. As in the code above, wire a path indicator into the code immediately before you do the file read where the error is occuring and then stop the code (breakpoint). Check to make sure the path and filename look right. If they do, check to make sure the path and file actually exist. Let us know how that turns out. And I agree with Shaun, a little time spent on better error handling would probably save you time in the long run.

"FP" means Front Panel (if you ever see "BD" it means Block Diagram). An Indicator is an output terminal (as opposed to a control which is an input terminal). Right-click on your FP. Select either "Modern" or "Classic". Select "String & Path". Select "File Path Indicator". Wire this path indicator to the input of your Open function. Put it anywhere on your Front Panel -- maybe under the time/date indicator, it looks like there is plenty of room there. Or if the actual Open is being done in a sub vi, put the indicator there and keep the sub vi open while you're running your program. The point of this is to be able to see exactly what path is being sent to the Open function. Two usual ways to generate a "file not found" error is for the file to not be there (doh), or if your code isn't generating the path correctly. If this explanation isn't enough, let me know and I'll generate some code. I run LabVIEW on a different machine so I'll need to SneakerNet it over here.

Put an indicator on your FP that tells you exactly what file it's trying to open (you can use a probe, but indicator would be easier to read). Then make sure that file exists; or maybe the name's not being formatted right.

Is it a "can't open file" error, a "file not found" error, etc? Why don't you post your code and maybe that will help us help you.

Something to try might be to replace that 1 vi that is gathering serial data with a dummy vi that just outputs a string of the same size you are expecting. See if that still produces a memory problem. My most confusing memory loss issues in the past was with a driver that wasn't playing well with a new computer, and not a code problem. If there's no other smoking gun, maybe you have something similar.

Too late now!

I really don't have to answer that, do I?