NI-Visa - Timeout during initialize of power supply

Question

Hello, I'm having an issue initializing a power supply using the NI-Visa libraries. After creating the session, the 1st call to Initialize() always fails. If I call it once again, it always succeeds. Adding a delay between the session creation and the init call did not help.
An oddity is that running SPY causes the problem to go away. I tried this a few times while recording and never saw the timeout. However, once SPY was stopped the same timeout behavior could be seen again. Does SPY add some type of latency within the NI-Visa libraries?
Any suggestions or troubleshooting tips would be greatly appreciated. Below are some setup notes in no particular order. Thanks.
1.       Power supply: Lamda 40-85, Genesys 3.3kW
2.       Issue: Initialize() must be called twice before returning successful
3.       Visa error: Timeout expired before operation completed.
4.       Steps to recreate:
4.1.    Create session
4.2.    Call initialize, results in a timeout
4.3.    Call initialize, returns success
5.       Setup details:
5.1.    NI Visa libraries
5.2.    Visual Studio 2010, C#, .NET 4.0
5.3.    Reference libraries:
5.3.1. ivi.dcpwr.interop, runtime version v1.0.3705, version 2.0.0.0
5.3.2. ivi.driver.interop, runtime version v1.0.3705, version 1.0.0.0
5.3.3. ivi.sessionfactory.interop, runtime version v1.0.3705, version 1.0.0.0
5.4.    NI PXI Chassis, Windows XP
5.5.    GPIB interface

Answer 1

I tried the updated dll's, actually only "ivi.sessionfactory.interop.dll" was newer, but received the same behavior.
I also sent the "*IDN?" message using the communicator,but was unable to reproduce the behavior no matter how many times I queried the power supply. However, there is a discrepancy between sending the "Initiate" command from within code versus using the communicator and sending "*IDN?", so I am unsure how to replicate the same steps. My previous post detailed the SPY log in response to sending the "Initiate" command, while sending "*IDN?" results in:
1.  ibwrt(UD0, "*IDN?", 5 (0x5))
Process ID: 0x00000F58         Thread ID: 0x00000330
Start Time: 16:25:12.437       Call Duration 00:00:00.000
ibsta: 0x100       iberr: 0             ibcntl: 5(0x5)
2.  ibrd(UD0, "LAMBDA,GEN40-...", 2000 (0x7D0))
Process ID: 0x00000F58         Thread ID: 0x00000330
Start Time: 16:25:12.437       Call Duration 00:00:00.359
ibsta: 0x2100       iberr: 0             ibcntl: 45(0x2d)
My app uses VISA commands while the communicator uses "ibwrt", etc. How do I go about simulating the "Initiate" call while using the Communicator? My code is posted at the bottom of this reply for clarity.
An oddity that is that, after a failed attempt to initiate the device which results in a timeout exception, the communicator can be used to read the standard response to the "*IDN?" command. This is the case even if the "idQuery" boolean of the "initiate" method is set to false. If idQuery=true, how is the resulting name supposed to be read back? The initiate function does not have a return value or any way of passing by reference. I tried all four combinations of the two flags, "idQuery" and "Reset", but nothing seemed to change in any configuration.
In response to your question about the firmware version, I pulled this from the spy file: "LAMBDA,GEN40-85-IEMD,S/N:xxxxxxx,REV:2U:3.0-D-". The reply appears to be truncated so I'll double check the response on Monday once I'm at the computer with the SPY file.
Again, thank you for input and attention. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. It will be sometime next week until I will be able to perform any more troubleshooting unfortunately. Do you see anything wrong with the "Initiate" method call, especially the name used? I'm curious if I should use the full name instead of the alias, but if that is the case why does the "initiate" call work the 2nd time? Oh well, I'll give it a try. Thanks again.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using Ivi.DCPwr.Interop;
using Ivi.SessionFactory.Interop;
namespace IviDcPower
    public partial class Form1 : Form
        IIviDCPwr _DcPwrSession;
        IIviDCPwrOutput _IiviDcPwrOutput;
        public Form1()
            InitializeComponent();
        private void btnCreateSession_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
            try
                IIviSessionFactory factory = new IviSessionFactoryClass();
                // Ask the session factory to create an instance of
                // the appropriate driver based on a logical name
                _DcPwrSession = (IIviDCPwr)factory.CreateDriver("ProgDCPS");
                addText("Session created");
            catch (Exception ex)
                addText(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().ToString() + "\r\n" + ex.ToString());
        private void btnInitialize_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
            try
                addText("Initializing...");
                _DcPwrSession.Initialize("ProgDCPS", cbQueryID.Checked, cbReset.Checked, "");
                if (_DcPwrSession.Initialized)
                    // Use IIviDcPwrOutput class-compliant interfaces, interchangeable code
                    _IiviDcPwrOutput = _DcPwrSession.Outputs.get_Item("");
                    addText("Success");
            catch (Exception ex)
                addText(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().ToString() + "\r\n" + ex.ToString());
                addText("Failed (Exception)");
        private void addText(string text)
            textBox1.Text = text + "\r\n\r\n" + textBox1.Text;
        private void btnCloseSession_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
            try
                _DcPwrSession.Close();
                addText("Session closed");
            catch (Exception ex)
                addText(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().ToString() + "\r\n" + ex.ToString());