Anybody having problems with VIPM 2020? And how can i get VIPM 2019?

[drjdpowell]

I'm having trouble with VIPM 2020 (the one with the major redesign) .  The problem is the main VIPM window doesn't show up on my Windows 7 virtual machine.   I would like to downgrade to VIPM 2019, but I cannot find the installer for that anywhere.

[Antoine Chalons]

When I run the install of VIPM I always run it as admin, and then set the VIPM EXE to always run as admin.

I'd lower the level of the UAC to the lowest option and disable the anti-virus if you have one.

[Mads]

One useful tip when troubleshooting VIPM is that there is an error log in %programdata%\JKI\VIPM\error

When you first ran it, did you get the user logon dialog?

I had that but was unable to logon, and when I then chose to continue without a logon it never showed any windows...I ended up uninstalling it, deleting the JKI/VIPM folder in ProgramData, and then reinstalling it - and this time I chose to register a new account, and got it to work.

That was at home though, at work I ended up with additional issues because the firewall would not accept the certificates of the server used by VIPM. I just noticed now that Jim Kring announced a fix for this on the discussion forum here: https://forums.jki.net/forum/5-vi-package-manager-vipm/ , but unfortunately that is not out yet...

 

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by Mads

[hooovahh]

I have seen a time when I launched VIPM 2020 and nothing happened.  So I looked in the task manager and saw VIPM trying to start, and I task killed it, and saw that there is a helper application that I think had the name service in it.  I task killed that too.  Then relaunching 2020 worked.  This might be what you are running into too.

[Jordan Kuehn]

It seems to me that it sometimes wants to open the VIPM Browser instead or if one is open the other one doesn't want to open. I need to retrace my steps to recreate the issue, but I noticed some strange behavior in the past, also in a VM. A restart got things working again too.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

 

On 6/25/2020 at 6:13 AM, drjdpowell said:

I would like to downgrade to VIPM 2019, but I cannot find the installer for that anywhere.

I've attached VIPM 2019 installer.

 

Edited July 4, 2020 by hooovahh
Installer removed by Jim's request

[drjdpowell]

Thanks, guys, I've downgraded to 2019 for now, and made a bug report at JKI.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

8 hours ago, drjdpowell said:

Thanks, guys, I've downgraded to 2019 for now, and made a bug report at JKI.

I tried VIPM2020. It was buggy for me. I also didn't like the new login "feature" and the notification taskbar malware. So I reverted to VIPM2019.

[LogMAN]

9 hours ago, Michael Aivaliotis said:

I tried VIPM2020. It was buggy for me. I also didn't like the new login "feature" and the notification taskbar malware. So I reverted to VIPM2019.

I agree, that feature should be opt-in and the logins are a bad joke. Also, the installer creates a task for the Task Scheduler without consent. This is prevented by our IT policies and ultimately fails the installation - silently for NIPM and with an error message for the offline installer.

VIPM 2019 it is 👍

[smithd]

the run on launch thing was just an awful idea. it makes me want to install packages with 7zip.

On my machine 2020 hasn't fixed the file association issue -- any computer i use which has had 2019 and now 2020 loses its .vip file association for some reason.

thanks to michael for giving us all an out on this.

Edited June 27, 2020 by smithd

[Neil Pate]

Yeah I was quite surprised to see the new VIPM hidden away even when I thought it was turned off.

Run with Windows start? Hmmm, no there is enough other crap starting then.

Run with LabVIEW start? What??? Are you joking? LOL never.

 

[Michael Aivaliotis]

18 hours ago, smithd said:

it makes me want to install packages with 7zip.

Well, they are zip files.

[hooovahh]

Years ago as a proof of concept I made a LabVIEW program that installed packages without needing VIPM installed.  As Michael said the files are zips with a specific structure, and spec file defining where the files should be placed, and optional pre/post VIs to run.  Obviously VIPM can do more things like track down packages that are dependent from the network, resolve version information, and a bunch of other things.  But if you just have a VIPC with all your packages in it that you need to install, it probably wouldn't be too hard to make a LabVIEW program that just installs that.

[smithd]

oh trust me i've done that on machines which might be offline or I just dont feel like installing VIPM for this one package. Its generally just two locations (vilib and maybe a palette file) so its pretty easy.

 

[hooovahh]

Well for me it would be a bit more complicated since I have Pre/Post Install and Uninstall VIs.  And some of those VIs depend on VIs in some of the packages.  So install order matters and dependencies would need to be checked so the order is right, and Pre/Post Install things ran in the right order, with the right input for things like Package Name, Install Files, etc. put into the variant input of those VIs.  Still possible and adds some complications.  Which is why to date I still just install VIPM and let it handle it.

[Neil Pate]

Uninstalled 2020 when my computer fan was spinning up for no apparent reason and then I seem some VIPM Browser stuff chewing at my CPU. That is odd, I thought I disabled it.... oh wow the tickboxes cannot be unselected so last time I thought I was turning it off I was actually doing nothing.

Installing 2019, thanks for the link @Michael Aivaliotis. By the way got any hacks to allow VIPM 2019 to manage LV2020 packages? This sucks 😞

Edited July 2, 2020 by Neil Pate

[Jim Kring]

Hi Everyone,

I was just alerted to this discussion (thanks @drjdpowell), so I wanted to be sure I heard all the feedback, to make sure we're staying on top it.

Before I dive in, I'll mention there is a version 2020.1 in beta right now (if you can't access this, please be sure you sign up for the beta and/or send me a PM). This addresses many of the points raised here, so please check it out.

Also, it's important to mention that VIPM 2020 had a LOT of work (and love) put into it, and the beta+launch was in the middle of COVID-19, so things didn't get as many eyes (i.e. beta testers) as usual. That's unfortunate and we're working hard on the new 2020.1 build. Any feedback/issues you have are important, so please do post them and know we're listening. It's hard to keep tabs on conversations that happen in various LAVA threads, so if you'd like to see something improved/resolved, please do post it in the VIPM forum or PM me.

I'll try hard to respond to the good points everyone raised.

First, I'll mention that VIPM 2020.1 no longer requires a sign in when installing packages from the VIPM Community Repository. In 2020.0, this was causing issues for some users due to their Enterprise IT/Networking configuration. And, as you've all mentioned, some users really didn't like it, which is fair.  There are still some features that use sign-in, like starring packages, and there will be a prompt when those features are invoked.

 

On 6/26/2020 at 10:23 PM, LogMAN said:

Also, the installer creates a task for the Task Scheduler without consent. This is prevented by our IT policies and ultimately fails the installation - silently for NIPM and with an error message for the offline installer.

@LogMAN Actually, nothing changed with how VIPM installs itself 2020, as compared to 2019 (and older versions). The issue was that the the VIPM 2020.0 (and older) installer framework (e.g. Advanced Installer) needed to be updated for newer versions of Windows.  In VIPM 2020.1 (now in beta -- see link above) we've addressed this issue and it should install without issues.

That said, there were some bugs in NI's LabVIEW 2020 installer that causes it to fail to correctly install VIPM 2020, in some cases -- e.g. the issue where it sometimes would fail to start. NI has been working with JKI to fix this.

 

On 6/27/2020 at 8:09 AM, Neil Pate said:

Yeah I was quite surprised to see the new VIPM hidden away even when I thought it was turned off.

Run with Windows start? Hmmm, no there is enough other crap starting then.

Run with LabVIEW start? What??? Are you joking? LOL never.

@Neil Pate That's fair   We added this feature to make VIPM much more responsive when users are opening packages -- VIPM sometimes runs as a background task, so that it doesn't have to reload itself for each of these operations.

This can be disabled in the VIPM settings file, here:

"C:\ProgramData\JKI\VIPM\Settings.ini"

[General]
Start VIPM when computer starts?="FALSE"
Start VIPM when LabVIEW starts?="FALSE"

 

On 6/25/2020 at 3:22 PM, Michael Aivaliotis said:

I've attached VIPM 2019 installer.

@Michael Aivaliotis Thanks for helping everyone out. Older versions of VIPM are available to users -- we have a link on the vipm.io/download page for users. However, since older versions of VIPM use outdated LV runtime engines that are longer be supported by NI and don't work well on newer OS'es, we don't encourage users to use them -- it often creates more problems for them, and a support burden for JKI and NI. As such, we ask that people do not post older downloads and instead direct people to get them from either NI or the VIPM websites. Again, thanks for helping people out.

 

Also, I appreciate everyone's feedback -- I know when things don't work well, it's super frustrating. VIPM 2020 had some bugs and left room for improvement, because of all the new features that had to get out the door in time for the LabVIEW 2020 launch date, and we didn't have the typical level of beta testing.

I hope 2020.1 resolves those, and if it's still missing things or not working right, let me know and I'll take responsibility for those issues.

Kind Regards,

-Jim

 

Edited July 3, 2020 by Jim Kring

[LogMAN]

43 minutes ago, Jim Kring said:

Actually, nothing changed with how VIPM installs itself 2020, as compared to 2019 (and older versions). The issue was that the the VIPM 2020.0 (and older) installer framework (e.g. Advanced Installer) needed to be updated for newer versions of Windows.  In VIPM 2020.1 (now in beta -- see link above) we've addressed this issue and it should install without issues.

That said, there were some bugs in NI's LabVIEW 2020 installer that causes it to fail to correctly install VIPM 2020, in some cases -- e.g. the issue where it sometimes would fail to start. NI has been working with JKI to fix this.

Wow, this is good news! I'll give it a try.

46 minutes ago, Jim Kring said:

Any feedback/issues you have are important, so please do post them and know we're listening. It's hard to keep tabs on conversations that happen in various LAVA threads, so if you'd like to see something improved/resolved, please do post it in the VIPM forum or PM me.

Point taken, I was going to post on the VIPM forum but then this thread happened and I couldn't resist...

48 minutes ago, Jim Kring said:

This can be disabled in the VIPM settings file, here:

"C:\ProgramData\JKI\VIPM\Settings.ini"

You can also disable the VIPM Service in the Task Manager under Startup. That said, I would like this to be opt-in or at least opt-out. Maybe on first start or during installation.

[Jim Kring]

Thanks for the quick response @LogMAN

1 hour ago, LogMAN said:

Wow, this is good news! I'll give it a try.

Point taken, I was going to post on the VIPM forum but then this thread happened and I couldn't resist...

You can also disable the VIPM Service in the Task Manager under Startup. That said, I would like this to be opt-in or at least opt-out. Maybe on first start or during installation.

No problem @LogMAN. I enjoy a good rant, as much as anyone 😛   I try not to take it personally when it's about VIPM (even though it's been a labor of love for ~20 years), and honor everyone's good intentions to make their development tools better, contribute to the community, and get their work done as effectively as possible.

Those are really good points about how to make the VIPM system tray service more configurable in terms of opt-in/-out.  Honestly, we were/are trying to take a lean (MVP) approach and listen to people's feedback. That's also hard for developer tools, where people do want access to the whole Swiss Army knife of settings. So, we did our best to at expose those to users via config file settings. This discussion has been helpful, and I've gone ahead and posted an official KnowledgeBase entry to make sure people can find this easily, in case the high-level features don't provide enough granularity.

VIPM KnowledgeBase: Disabling VIPM service (System Tray) startup when LabVIEW starts up

Thanks again and keep the feedback coming! I'm glad to hear you're going to give VIPM 2020.1 a try.

Edited July 3, 2020 by Jim Kring

[LogMAN]

11 hours ago, Jim Kring said:

I've gone ahead and posted an official KnowledgeBase entry to make sure people can find this easily, in case the high-level features don't provide enough granularity.

VIPM KnowledgeBase: Disabling VIPM service (System Tray) startup when LabVIEW starts up

I am not authorized to access this page. Senpai? 😢

Edited July 4, 2020 by LogMAN

[Jim Kring]

On 7/4/2020 at 12:28 AM, LogMAN said:

I am not authorized to access this page. Senpai? 😢

Sorry about that @LogMAN. It should be publicly visible now.

Please try again and let me know:

VIPM KnowledgeBase: Disabling VIPM service (System Tray) startup when LabVIEW starts up

[LogMAN]

57 minutes ago, Jim Kring said:

Sorry about that @LogMAN. It should be publicly visible now.

Please try again and let me know:

VIPM KnowledgeBase: Disabling VIPM service (System Tray) startup when LabVIEW starts up

[Neil Pate]

Thanks @Jim Kring. The RC installed fine on my PC and editing the ini file to turn off the auto-start also seems to work.

[Jim Kring]

1 hour ago, Neil Pate said:

Thanks @Jim Kring. The RC installed fine on my PC and editing the ini file to turn off the auto-start also seems to work.

Great! I’m glad that worked for you, @Neil Pate.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

On 7/3/2020 at 10:43 AM, Jim Kring said:

Thanks for helping everyone out. Older versions of VIPM are available to users -- we have a link on the vipm.io/download page for users. However, since older versions of VIPM use outdated LV runtime engines that are longer be supported by NI and don't work well on newer OS'es, we don't encourage users to use them -- it often creates more problems for them, and a support burden for JKI and NI. As such, we ask that people do not post older downloads and instead direct people to get them from either NI or the VIPM websites. Again, thanks for helping people out.

Can you provide a public link where people can download VIPM 2019? So far I haven't seen one, unless I missed it.