Help! LabVIEW wont start, even after reinstall or Windows Restore

[drjdpowell]

Has anyone ever had a problem with LabVIEW crashing on start even after you reinstalled LabVIEW (and tried Windows System Restore to revert to a point before the problem happened)?

I believe there must be some corrupt file somewhere; I've tried manually deleting the compiled-code cache and the LabVIEW INI file but to no effect.  Can anyone think of any other file that LabVIEW might read on startup?  Where does LabVIEW save the backup copies of VIs (that, after a crash, it asks you if you want to recover)?  I think it could be that.

Crossposted on NI.com

Edited September 12, 2017 by drjdpowell

[PiDi]

Have you cleared both compiled-code caches, i.e.

1. The one in <National Instruments>\LabVIEW XXXX\VIObjCache\(...)

2. The one in <Documents>\LabVIEW Data\VIObjCache
 

I think the recovery files are also somewhere in LabVIEW Data folder... Maybe just try to wipe this whole folder?

 

Also: the crashes at the startup happens when LV have problems with loading project providers. Any toolkit you've installed recently? Or just go to the <LabVIEW>\resource\Framework\Providers\GProviders folder and remove it's contents to see if LV will start without them, this will narrow down the problem.

Edited September 12, 2017 by PiDi

[drjdpowell]

Thanks, I got those caches.

New symptom: MAX wont start either (just hangs and the splash screen).

Earlier version of LabVIEW (2015) works fine.

Edited September 12, 2017 by drjdpowell

[drjdpowell]

16 minutes ago, PiDi said:

I think the recovery files are also somewhere in LabVIEW Data folder... Maybe just try to wipe this whole folder?

Fantastic idea!   That worked.  LabVIEW 2017 now opens.  Why was I searching through that folder for suspicious items when I could nuke the whole thing?

[hooovahh]

Glad you got it working (partially at least) my suggestion would just be to repair stuff.  Yeah it takes a while to reinstall MAX, LabVIEW and all the other stuff but it has worked for me most times LabVIEW refuses to start.

[drjdpowell]

3 hours ago, hooovahh said:

Glad you got it working (partially at least) my suggestion would just be to repair stuff.  Yeah it takes a while to reinstall MAX, LabVIEW and all the other stuff but it has worked for me most times LabVIEW refuses to start.

Sadly, NI has removed the ability for me to repair any NI installation.  I’m not happy.

[hooovahh]

Oh lovely.  Yeah I noticed this was removed for NXG and complained, but didn't realize this extended to current LabVIEW.

[chriscoxtx]

I'm currently in the middle of a complete reinstallation of everything.  Everything.  After multiple issues with 2017 crashing, and DAQ-mx not recognizing hardware (I re-installed it after installing 2017, and it was working fine for a couple months).  

wish I had seen this post yesterday, but c'est la vie.

[drjdpowell]

Arrgh!   Same problem, only now nothing suggested above fixes it.

[gleichman]

I also had these same issues. Mine was due to a bad beta install and was so bad NI PM would not work which created a interesting catch-22. I finally got NI PM working and was able to uninstall everything and re-install.

https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z0000019R9WSAU