Archived: NI-VISA 5.4.x Known Issues

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Overview

This document contains the Archived: NI-VISA 5.4.x known issues that were discovered before and since the previous release. Known issues are performance issues or technical bugs that NI has acknowledged exist within this version of the product.

 

Not every issue known to NI appears on this list; it is intended to show the most severe and common issues that you may encounter and provide workarounds when possible. Other technical issues that you may encounter could occur through normal product use or system compatibility issues. You may find more information on these issues in NI’s Product Documentation, Knowledgebase, or Community.

This document has been archived and is no longer updated by National Instruments.

Known Issues by Date

The following items are known issues in NI-VISA 5.4.x Known Issues sorted by Date.

105956Viewing NI-VISA Options tab on Real-Time controller may hang MAX
109538Slot path shows up incorrectly for multifunction and bridged NI-VISA-based PXI devices
126535VISA Read STB on Mac OS X waits for NI-VISA-defined timeout even if USB device responds sooner
145966Third-Party USB device communication may timeout after host PC is put into standby
164621NI-VISA does not recognize Bluetooth devices on Windows Mobile
166323Using interrupts with NI-VISA-based PXI cards on NI RT Hypervisor system may cause hang on reboot
182027Setting serial baud rate with NI-VISA may return errors from third-party serial drivers
183242Calling viUsbControlIn on composite USB devices may cause system to blue screen
226865Drivers developed by the VISA Driver Development Wizard on Windows XP Dutch do not install correctly
90238 3WP9E800NI-VISA leaks Mach ports on Mac OS X when communicating with USB Raw devices
242354VISA always adds a parallel port resource
255456Two applications simultaneously calling viLock and viUnlock on the same VISA INSTR resource will eventually result in an error
283686Rebooting a system or refreshing Devices & Interfaces in MAX will remove a key in visaconf.ini
308006Providing VISA remote access to a cRIO device may cause duplicate Serial & Parallel entries in MAX
342419Block diagram doesn't fully load when using VISA 5.1.x, System Configuration 5.3.x, and LVRT
358525NI-VISA LabVIEW support pieces are only visible in the feature tree if the corresponding LabVIEW version is installed on the system
375426Unable to communicate with Agilent GPIB ENet Device
412663VISA Interactice Control help cannot be opened on Linux computers
420012In VISA Interactive Control, File»Exit closes all open sessions regardless of selection



IDKnown Issue
105956

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Viewing NI-VISA Options tab on Real-Time controller may hang MAX
On PXI and PC Real-Time controllers with VISA Server installed, MAX occasionally may hang when trying to view the VISA Options tab.

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 4.3  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 08/25/2010
109538

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Slot path shows up incorrectly for multifunction and bridged NI-VISA-based PXI devices
PXI devices that are either behind a PCI bridge or have multiple functions (for example, both Ethernet and SCSI device) show an incorrect slot path in MAX when using a driver generated by the VISA Driver Development Wizard.

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 4.3  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 08/25/2010
126535

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VISA Read STB on Mac OS X waits for NI-VISA-defined timeout even if USB device responds sooner
VISA Read STB always waits for the timeout defined in NI-VISA before returning, even if a USB device returns a response quicker than the timeout value.

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 4.4  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 08/25/2010
145966

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Third-Party USB device communication may timeout after host PC is put into standby
A Windows-based machine communicating with a third-party USB device using a driver not developed by the VISA Driver Development Wizard may timeout if the PC is put into standby mode in the middle of a NI-VISA USB transfer. After the PC is woken up, it thinks the USB device should resend the entire data packet and eventually times out because the packet is not resent.

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 4.4  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 08/25/2010
164621

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NI-VISA does not recognize Bluetooth devices on Windows Mobile
On a Windows Mobile device, Bluetooth devices can act as virtual serial devices, giving them a COM port number. NI-VISA cannot recognize this COM port and gives errors when trying to access it through VISA functions.

Workaround: Use the non-NI-VISA Bluetooth VIs.

Reported Version: 4.4  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 08/25/2010
166323

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Using interrupts with NI-VISA-based PXI cards on NI RT Hypervisor system may cause hang on reboot
If you are using interrupts with a PXI card that uses an NI-VISA-based driver on an NI RT Hypervisor system, independent reboot of the RT system may hang if the driver does not have the interrupt disarm sequence defined.

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 4.5.1  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 08/25/2010
182027

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Setting serial baud rate with NI-VISA may return errors from third-party serial drivers
NI-VISA may return an error while setting the serial baud rate when using third-party serial drivers, even though setting this same baud rate may work in other third-party applications. This is due to how NI-VISA verifies baud rate settings.

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 4.5  Resolved Version: 15.0  Added: 08/25/2010
183242

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Calling viUsbControlIn on composite USB devices may cause system to blue screen
When using viUsbControlIn or VISA USB Control In.vi, if a composite USB RAW device is passed in as the VISA resource, the system may crash with a blue screen.

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 4.6  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 08/25/2010
226865

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Drivers developed by the VISA Driver Development Wizard on Windows XP Dutch do not install correctly
When using the VISA Driver Development Wizard on Windows XP Dutch, the OS does not correctly recognize the .inf file generated.

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 3.4  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 08/25/2010
90238
3WP9E800


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NI-VISA leaks Mach ports on Mac OS X when communicating with USB Raw devices
When performing a VISA Open and VISA Close on a USB Raw device multiple times inside a loop, the number of Mach ports in Mac OS X increases. This may cause a crash if the code performing these calls is run over an extended period of time.

Workaround: Restart the development/run-time environment

Reported Version: 3.4  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 08/25/2010
242354

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VISA always adds a parallel port resource
VISA will always add a static resource bound to LPT1 in visaconf.ini. If a system does not have a parallel port, this resource will show up with a yellow exclamation mark in MAX.

Workaround: Delete the parallel port in MAX

Reported Version: 5.0  Resolved Version: 15.0  Added: 08/09/2011
255456

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Two applications simultaneously calling viLock and viUnlock on the same VISA INSTR resource will eventually result in an error
Two applications that are both trying to lock and unlock a VISA INSTR resource using viLock and viUnlock will result in one of the applications eventually returning error -1073807204: VISA: (Hex 0xBFFF009C) The current session did not have a lock on the resource.

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 5.0.1  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 08/09/2011
283686

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Rebooting a system or refreshing Devices & Interfaces in MAX will remove a key in visaconf.ini
If the following key is added to disable the error replacement character when performing 9-bit VISA serial reads, refreshing Devices & Interfaces in MAX or rebooting the system will remove that key from visaconf.ini: [ASRL-RSRC-ALIAS] DisableErrorReplacement=1

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 5.0  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 08/09/2011
308006

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Providing VISA remote access to a cRIO device may cause duplicate Serial & Parallel entries in MAX
Adding a new permission to the Remote Access List under the VISA Server for a cRIO device may cause duplicate Serial & Parallel entries to appear underneath the device in MAX.

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 4.6  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 08/09/2011
342419

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Block diagram doesn't fully load when using VISA 5.1.x, System Configuration 5.3.x, and LVRT

Workaround: resize or minimize/maximize the block diagram

Reported Version: 5.1  Resolved Version: 5.2  Added: 08/06/2012
358525

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NI-VISA LabVIEW support pieces are only visible in the feature tree if the corresponding LabVIEW version is installed on the system

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 5.2  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 08/06/2012
375426

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Unable to communicate with Agilent GPIB ENet Device

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 5.2  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 10/31/2012
412663

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VISA Interactive Control help cannot be opened on Linux computers

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 5.4  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 09/06/2013
420012

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In VISA Interactive Control, File»Exit closes all open sessions regardless of selection
The shortcut CTRL+X (File»Exit) in VISA Interactive Control asks if you want to close all sessions, but closes all sessions and the main program in either case.

Workaround: N/A

Reported Version: 5.4  Resolved Version: N/A  Added: 09/06/2013

 

Document last updated on 09/06/2013

Glossary of Terms

 

  • Bug ID - When an issue is reported to NI, you may be given this ID or find it on ni.com.  You may also find IDs posted by NI on the discussion forums or in KnowledgeBase articles.
  • Legacy ID – An older issue ID that refers to the same issue.  You may instead find this issue ID in older known issues documents.
  • Description - A few sentences which describe the problem. The brief description given does not necessarily describe the problem in full detail.
  • Workaround - Possible ways to work around the problem.
  • Reported Version - The earliest version in which the issue was reported.
  • Resolved Version - Version in which the issue was resolved or was no longer applicable. "N/A" indicates that the issue has not been resolved.
  • Date Added - The date the issue was added to the document (not the reported date).