Academic Company Events NI Developer Zone Support Solutions Products & Services Contact NI MyNI
1 ratings:
 4 out of 5     Rate this Document

Instrument Driver Errors and Firmware Versions

Primary Software: Instrument Drivers/IVI
Primary Software Version: N/A
Primary Software Fixed Version: N/A
Secondary Software: N/A

Problem:
I can communicate with my instrument in Measurement and Automation Explorer, but my instrument driver returns an error upon initialization.

Solution:

One possible explanation for this is that the firmware on the instrument you have is a different version of that used when the driver was written; this is not as significant a problem as it may sound. Often times the *idn? query response or a specific firmware version response is queried and parsed in the initialization portion of instrument drivers; this is done to verify initial and standard communication with the instrument. Although the command set to control the instrument, and its correponding functionality to not dramatically change (if at all), the simple *idn? or firmware query response string may have changed across firmware versions. When the driver expects one string and receives another, it may return an error. This is most common when a driver is written for a family of devices which share the same command set, where an update to one member of the family could cause this issue. There are a few solutions, none of which are too difficult to implement:

  1. Try updating the firmware version of your instrument (usually from the manufacturer's website) to see if the driver is compatible with the most recent version already.
  2. Revert the firmware to the version that the instrument driver was created for. You can find out what firmware was used by reading the readme file of the driver, located in C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.6\instr.lib\ and then your instrument.
  3. Parameterize the initialize function to NOT perform the *idn? and/or firmware version query (many driver API's provide such parameters).
  4. Use Measurement and Automation Explorer to obtain the *idn? and/or firmware query response(s), and modify the intialize function to expect the actual string used for that firmware version.
  5. See the related links below for more information.
  6. Contact NI support.

For more information and specific error codes, please see the VISA Troubleshooting Wizard related link below.
     


Related Links:
VISA Troubleshooting Wizard

Attachments:





Report Date: 04/18/2005
Last Updated: 11/08/2008
Document ID: 3KHF9U4B

Your Feedback! poor Poor  |  Excellent excellent   Yes No
 Document Quality? 
 Answered Your Question? 
  1 2 3 4 5
Please Contact NI for all product and support inquiries.submit