How do I install Shared Variable Engine on a computer not having Labview?

Hi,
I am trying to communicate with a real time program running on Compact RIO through shared variables. I have an executable of the host vi that runs on a Windows computer. If I run this executable on the computer that has Labview installed on it, it functions fine. I want to be able to run this executable on a computer with Labview. I learned that I have to first install Shared Variable Engine on this computer.
How do I do that? Where to install it from? Is that going to be sufficient? Please provide the solution or point me to the right resources.
Thank you.
Anmol.

When you built the installer for the executable, you have a choice to include additional installers. One of them is the "NI Variable Engine". Have you tried including it?
LabVIEW Champion . Do more with less code and in less time .

Similar Messages

How is work "Get Shared Variable List with another computer " ?

Hi all
I can't receive the list of Shared Variables from another computer .
From localhost computer I received it.
Why?
Regards
Iskander

First the stupid questions...
Are you sure the variables have been deployed on the other computer?
Are you sure you have the right IP Address?
Could your IT department be blocking you?
Could Windows firewall be blocking you?
There are only two ways to tell somebody thanks: Kudos and Marked Solutions
Unofficial Forum Rules and Guidelines

How many clients subscribed to shared variable engine

Hi,
I have shared variable engine deployed on RT and want to know how many clients get access to the shared variables. Is it possible? Thanks!
Tom

Theoretically there is no limit for the number of clients (maybe there is a 2^32-1 limit somewhere I don't know about).
However, more clients create more threads and the CPU usage will increase.
So you shouldn't use that much clients or host the SVE at the host computer if possible.
Christian

Shared Variable Engine on Windows PC w/o full install of LabVIEW

I have the NI Developer Suite (8.20) and need some conformation before I get too deep in a project.
First of all, it is my desire to become very efficient on develop compiled executables with LabVIEW 8.20 as my NI Developer Suite license allows me to deploy these programs to any number of machines without facing copyright infringement. I have been successful with this to a certain degree, but am still having problems in the testing stages of my application especially in cases where the hardware I am trying to target does not exist on my developing station. If anyone can point me to white papers that would help me get the mindset to develop in this way, I would appreciate it.
Onto the topic of this post:
I am just scratching the surface of the shared variable interface that is available in LabVIEW 8.2. My project involves two computers where both of them need to share variables back and forth from each other. I've been reading everything I can get my hands on and I am having a hard time answering my unlying question: Is it possible for both of these machines to be running compiled LabVIEW programs and still manage the shared variables between them? That is to say, can one of the machines have the Shared Variable Engine running on it as a Windows service, or compiled into my application executable.
I've read that I can access shared variables from my compiled LabVIEW application through NI-PSP. I am wondering what my limitations would be sans-LabVIEW installation other then the troubleshooting head ache you get from developing applications without direct access to the hardware.
Thank you for your time and submissions.
-Nickerbocker

I am trying to get the "Shared Variable Client - Server" project example compiled so that both the server and client vi's can be run as executables on a standalone machine.
I have created 3 build specifications:
1. "My Server" which is the compiled EXE of the server.lvib. Added that entire library to the source.
2. "My Client" which is the compiled EXE of the client.lvib. Added that entire library to the source.
3. "My Installer" which is the installation package of the vi's and NI supporting software. In the additional installers I have added:
* NI DataSocket
* NI LabVIEW Run-Time Engine 8.2
* NI Measurement & Automation Explorer 4.1
* NI Variable Engine
* NI Variable Manager
* NI-DAQmx 8.3
Some of those are added for future needs. Installed the package on my target machine and run the server executable it appears to run fine but I get various error messages from my client.exe package (which I won't go into detail here, yet). Upon stopping the server I get the message "LabVIEW: (Hex 0x8BBB0005) Unable to locate variable in he Shared Variable Engine. Deployment of this variable may have failed."
I check the services running and see that the "National Instruments PSP Server Locator" and the "National Instruments Variable Engine" are both in the list and "Started." I open up the Variable Manager that has been installed on my target machine and manually add the "waveform" and the "command" variables under a process I call "server" and start the process. After that I start my server.exe that I have compiled from the server.lvib library. The process gives no error messages until the stop button is pressed, and then I receive the message "LabVIEW: (Hex 0x8BBB0011) The connection to the server was disconnected."
The compiled programs run fine on my development machine as well as the uncompiled VIs within the LabVIEW development enviornment. Something tells me that I simply do not have the Variable engine properly configured on my target machine. Also, the process and variables should automatically be populated under "Local System" in the Variable Manager, right? I do not need to add them manually, or do I?
Thanks for your input!
-Nickerbocker

Error with the Shared Variable Engine

Hi,
I have a problem with the Shared Variable Engine,
A .doc File is attached to this message, decribing the problem with pictures.
I will be glad if anyone can help me.
Sincerely yours
Amitai Abramson
Attachments:
Question.doc ‏819 KB

Hi Amitai,
Good afternoon and I hope your well.
A member of the team from NI Israel contacted me regarding this post.
I want to provide you with extra details on how to resolve your issue - i.e. Repair (Or Re-install) the Shared Variable Engine.
If you use the MsiBlast Tool it will populate a list of all MSI NI Installers. One of these will be NI Variable Engine. On the right-hand side you can the click 'Repair'. I would also Repair the engine support for the versions of LabVIEW you have installed. Please see attachments for MsiBlast and a screenshoot of the MSIBlast screen.
If this doesn't work I would recommend re-installing LabVIEW using the following guide, which I posted on this forum. (second post by me).
Please let me know how you get on,
Kind Regards,
James.
Message Edited by Hillman on 12-03-2008 12:19 PM
Message Edited by Hillman on 12-03-2008 12:19 PM
Kind Regards
James Hillman
Applications Engineer 2008 to 2009 National Instruments UK & Ireland
Loughborough University UK - 2006 to 2011
Remember Kudos those who help!
Attachments:
Repair Shared Variable Engine.JPG ‏97 KB
msiBlast.zip ‏110 KB

NI Visa - Shared Variable Engine

Hi,
I am using labview Shared Variable Engine to create variables on my workstation and bind them to variables on my server.
I have labview 8.2 installed on my workstation and labview 8.5 installed on my server.
The communication between them worked perfectly and I was able to use the variables created in the workstation.
In my application I need yo use NI visa to take serial input. So I installed the NI Visa on my workstation and the NI visa worked.
However, the Server was not able to see the variables I have created in my workstation.
Does this mean that NI visa do not work in parallel with the Shared Variable Engine, or does the NI visa change some of the settings parameters that would stop the Shared Variable Engine from working properly.
Thanks in Advance

This information helps me get a better idea of what you are doing, but I need much more information in order to help pinpoint what is happening in your application. You should absolutely be able to use VISA as well as the Shared Variables concurrently. What is the device that you are using for data acquisition? I'll need the model of the device. What kind of data are you acquiring? How are you using VISA to communicate with your instrument?
One other item is to look in the distributed system manager to see if your shared variables are actually getting updated
Any code you could post here would help as well.
National Instruments
Applications Engineer

Shared Variable Engine Error Handling

I have a HMI system that connects through shared variables to an OPC Server. I have encountered problems with Variable Engine, and a problem with tagger which I don't know anything about. I checked OPC Server to see ifit's installed properly and the items status is good, and the server's connected. I tried to restart the shared variable engine service but it doesn't reply. When I monitor variables there's no connection. I used Alarm&Event query.vi in my application and then encountering tagger error, server connection failed. How could I handle these errors?
I appreciate any help.

I've created Bindings to OPC items I want to read/write through an OPC Client instance, bound front panel objects to these shared variables, deployed the entire library and run the VI.
All the connections were true (green PSP-LED. through the Monitor Variables all the variables and OPC items of client instance had good quality and right value.
All the variables were configured to log data and alarms.
Configuring the library for a data base through it's DSCsettings:database, I used Historical VIs (Read trace,… ) to retrieve data from citadel and they worked properly. I used Alarm & Event Query.vi to retrieve alarms from citadel, the VI encountered this Error:
        "Some part of tagger encountered a problem and should be closed"
After that the entire connections failed (PSP-LEDs goes red) and the I/O Engine couldn't be restarted and shows this Error:
             "Could not stop the National Instruments Variable Engine Service on local computer.
              Error 1053: the service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion."
And the variable monitor dosen't show any library and variables.

Appear to lose connection with the Shared Variable Engine

Have been through the boards, but with no success regarding the specifics of my problem.
I am running a real-time application on a PXI-8108. The host software is taking care of user interface, etc. Information exchange is handled using Unbound Network Shared Variables (located on the host, though problems occur no matter where the variables are located). Everything deploys fine. Software runs swimmingly. I have backed off the DAQ/communication processes until the RT cores are at <10% busy. However, occassionally while running, I get a popup "Waiting for Real-Time Target xxx to respond..." If this message stays up for long enough, then the target's attempts to read the Shared Variables start erroring out with an error -1950679035. As the variables have already been deployed and used prior to this instant, I find this curious. If I filter out the error, eventually the real-time software comes back up and everything progresses as though nothing happened. However, this is a potential deal-breaker for the users who can be impatient with having to wait a few seconds for the software to respond.
Any idea what is happening? I'm not pumping huge amounts of data over the network, no threads should be starving. Kinda confused.
Dan M.

The shared variables are being used much like how a queue would, directing each loop to perform an action should the host require it. If no action is required, then the loops default to check their respective bus or DAQ.
Currently, I am running 13 timed loops (whose periods I have extended signficantly during debug to no detrimental effect of my software, but to no improvement in the issue in question):
RS-232/J1708 converter loop (50ms period)
CAN loop (50ms)
DMM loop (250ms)
Oscilloscope loop (250ms)
DAQ loop (50ms, includes 1 AI task, 4 DI tasks, and 6 CTR in tasks)
Switch loop (50ms)
RS-232 loops (50ms for the main, 1 additional loop at 1Hz)
RS-485 loops (50ms for the main, 4 additional loops at 1Hz)
Both cores appear to share the load, usually the aggregate load is under 15%. When the popup appears telling me that the host is waiting for a reply from the target, the PXI controller monitor output still updates the CPU loads, which do not show anything unusual, such as a spike or a freeze in loading. The target loading does spike up to about 30% total after the communication is reestablished, but that appears to be the software attempting to "catch up" with the events that occurred during the "black out".
The error reads like this:
Shared Variable in Main Target Application.vi
This error or warning occurred while reading the following Shared Variable:
\\My Computer\Host-Target Interface\RS-485 Messages to Target [<--insert other variables here]
\\192.168.1.122\Host-Target Interface\RS-485 Messages to Target
Unable to locate variable in the Shared Variable Engine. Deployment of this variable may have failed.
Are there any other drivers that would be starving the Shared Variable Engine? For example, if a VISA or NI-DAQmx driver goes to sleep, could it hold up the SVE? What execution system are they running under?
Thanks for your help!
Dan M.

Executable won't re-connect to shared variable engine when it breifly goes offline

Hi,
I have shared variables that are hosted on a field-point controller. I read these variables from executables that run on a PC. When the shared variable engine on the field point controller goes offline and then comes back online (for instance, if I cycle the power to the controller), the executables on the PC don't automatically reconnect. I need to restart the executables in order for them to re-connect and read the shared variables.
Any ideas on how to have the executables automatically re-connect? I don't want to have to restart the execuables when the power cycles on the controller,
Thanks, Derek.

Hi Derek,
It is my understanding that the variables should reconnect, even after your FieldPoint has been power cycled. I found a few articles that could be helpful; read through these and let me know if you are still having issues.
http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/7BA64956A475405F862570ED007B2A88?OpenDocument
http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/04D9A85B6967EE87862571140065EEC6?OpenDocument
http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/AA97FF29D0B3C748862572F600055B22?OpenDocument
Cheers,
Marti C
Applications Engineer
National Instruments
NI Medical

RT cRIO: Shared Variable Engine Errors

This is an app written in LV2011 running on a cRIO-9076 (Scan mode), with the August release of software installed on it.
I have gown to great lengths to try an optomize my code, I have reached an impasse. The VERY FIRST TIME I run the code on the target (be it via a self-starting EXE or targeting from my Windows development machine I am able to read and write to several shared variables, but then when I access them again (possibly when I am starting a couple timed loops and the processor is very high) I get this:
Error -1950679023 occurred at Shared Variable in targetIdleLoop.vi->ZDAQ_cRIO_Target_Main.vi
Possible reason(s):
LabVIEW: (Hex 0x8BBB0011) The connection to the server was disconnected.
This error or warning occurred while writing the following Shared Variable:\\ZeeAero-RIO1\variables - network - RT (separate)\RTStatus\\10.10.10.10\variables - network - RT (separate)\RTStatus
If I go back to the Dev machine and restart the code, I don't get this error; it only happens after a reboot.
BUT on this second run (or subsequent VI starts), when we get to that same point, a client priogram running on Windows and reading a network variable successfully suddenly gets:
LabVIEW: -1950679035 (Hex 0x8BBB0005) Unable to locate variable in the Shared Variable Engine. Deployment of this variable may have failed.
Which lasts a minute or so, then goes away. The code is made to loop, and when it loops back through this point there are no errors at all.
So, to recap:
1st Run after reeboot, 1st loop :Error on Target (0x8BBB0011), connection to server disconnected
Subsequent Runs, 1st loop: Error on Windows Client (0x8BBB0005) Unable to locate variable in the Shared Variable Engine. Deployment of this variable may have failed.
Subsequent Runs, 2nd+ loop: No error
Here is a link to a screenshot of the installed SW on the Target:
EDIT: I should mention that there are three loops running in parallel on this app; 1 is a Timed-loop (at the moment) set to a period of 10ms with 100 priority, #2 is also a timed loop and is set to 3ms with priority = 50 and the third is a WHILE loop with a 50ms wait. The error occurs during the WHILE init phase, which happens once per run, not repeatedly.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

This is killing me. It's obviously something to do with when the Timed loops start AND when I access the network variables.
See the screenshot below.
Note that I read and write to several network variables in Subroutines to the left of this screenshot at startup. The starting of the timed loops causes the issue with the shared variables. (also note that the periods are set to 100ms and 99ms in my testing after the initial 1st loop.
Now look at the Wait at the bottom set to 10 seconds. In this case, it will work. There is no error at breakpoint 37 if I wait around 10s. If I DON'T wait the 10 seconds, there is an error after the check on the BOOL "stop - Network" variable that NEVER GOES AWAY. If I look at the CPU monitor, there is an initial bump in the cpu when starting the loops, and then it drops to about 15%. But if I don't have that 10s wait, there is ERR 0x8BBB0011 and the CPU spikes to 75% every 5 seconds and it never goes away.
And that's only the 1st loop after reboot. The 10s makes this work, but I still have an issue with it once I start doing individual runs (loops).

Deploy Shared Variable Engine in localhost

I need to talk to multiple RTs using single computer. It seems
obvious to deploy shared variable engine (libraries) in localhost instead of
RT. However, the problem is the shared variables (read) used in localhost VIs
are not being updated from RTs. But when I am using another local VI to update
the shared variable, it is working just fine. The variable path of the RT looks
like "\\My Computer\Local NPSVlvlib\Test
Data". I think this is the problem why the values are not being updated
because RT cannot resolve the network path ("\\My
Computer\Local NPSVlvlib\Test Data"). Also, I tried to change the shared
variable path in RT but I could not do it. Help Needed!!!!
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Thanks for your reply. I found in this link http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/9900#toc2 that host computer can host the shared variable library and RT does not need the shared variable engine. See below
If your application includes a single host computer and a single or multiple RT targets it is recommended to host the library on the host computer. This will save memory and processor time on the RT targets. Also, by hosting the library on the host computer instead of the RT target, you can reduce the software install footprint on the RT target. The RT target will not need the Network Variable Engine, but will still require Variable Client Support. The Network Variable Engine allows hosting, the Client allows communicating with libraries on other machines. You can see a RIO target with these installed in Figure 4.
That exactly what I am trying to do. Any comments?

Deploying cRIO as Shared Variable Engine

I am finishing up a project where a crio will be continuously recording data and the computer is running a program that will download the data once daily as well as comunicate with the program running on crio device over shared variables. Since the crio will be using a cellular modem to connect to the internet, connection loss is expected. For this reason we have made the crio serve the shared variables so that if connection is lost to the PC, the crio will continue to record data normally without problems when it writes to or reads from the shared variables.
The crio will be running headless. I built a real-time application and deployed it as startup successfully on the crio device without warnings or errors. I connected to it via font panel to confirm it started up and is working properly. I will eventually use the application builder to build an installer that will install everything needed to run the program on the PC side. However, when I open the 'Belle Glade System PC' and run it, it attempts to deploy the shared variables on the crio device. It warns me that it will close any applications running on the crio device. This is not what I want. The shared variable engine is already deployed on the crio device and the program is running. All the PC program (Belle Glade System PC) needs to do is run and connect to the shared variable engine already deployed. I am obviously doing something really fundamentally wrong here and I could use some help.
[will work for kudos]

I apologize for not posting the solution to the problem.
Basically what you end up having to do is create two nearly identical shared variable libraries, one on the pc and one on the crio. The library on the PC has each of its shared variables binded to the corrosponding variable in the cRIO Shared Variable library by PSP URL (ip address and variable location). To do this, open the PC shared variable library and go to the properties of a specific variable. Check "Enable Aliasing" and under the bind to drop down menu select PSP URL. Then hit browse and find the variable on the crio. Do this for each of the variables on the pc.
This option does not seem to be 100% reliable as it has trouble detecting connection problems between host PC and crio device. This is because shared variables look for a connection to the shared variable engine. However, both the pc and the crio have their own shared variable engine running as a host so there is always a connection as far as it knows, lol. This solution worked ok for me since I could not find a more relable option.
There is a better explaination on this post: http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/cRIO-Shared-Variables-amp-stand-alone-application/m-p/797139?query.i...
[will work for kudos]

Is Shared Variable Engine with LV8 an OPC server ?

Hello
Is the shared variable engine with LV8 an OPC server ?
Does any OPC client can acces to Variable Engine OPC server an read shared variable ?
Can I build an installer and deploy my application with Variable Engine OPC server on other PC without LV8.
Thank you

Hi
You can communicate between an OPC serveur and LV8 and use shared variable. To deploy an LV8 exe application, you must have the run time engine installed on the PC without installing LV8. You can create a setup with LV 8 in which you can integrate the run time engine.
Kamal
NIF

Shared variable engine memory problem

Hello,
I have a lot of problems with DSC 8. The server that worked very well in DSC 7, in DSC 8 is creating a lot of problems starting with memory leaks in tagsrv process. I have over 5000 shared variables and when I publish them the tagsrv is around 90Mb of memory. After approx. 30 min is around 130Mb and so on until the computer becomes useless. If I restart the computer the process is the same, even if I don't start the VI that updates the shared variables. I tried to uncheck different things in the variables definition like: no alarming, no buffering, no scaling, with no improvement.
Is there a way to undeploy the shared variables or processes manually, not from the labview project, or Variable Manager. To undeploy the mentioned library with the Variable Manager takes more that an hour (just to enumerate all the shared variables).
Any suggestion is welcomed,
cosmin

cosmin,
I have several thoughts for you. First, I recommend
splitting up
your 5000 variable library into a set of smaller libraries. In
contrast
with the LabVIEW DSC 7 engine, the LabVIEW 8 Shared Variable Engine is
optimized for multiple smaller libraries. I would recommend
having at
most about 1000 variables per library. You'll see some different
recommendations from different people at NI, but in my personal
experience I
think 1000 is about as many Shared Variables that can be easily managed
at
once. For your case this would mean having 1000 variables in 5
different
libraries. --Splitting up your library gives you the added
benefit of being able to
undeploy/disable individual libraries without affecting the other
libraries. Unfortunately, the SCF migration tool will not do this
for you manually so it may take a little time to get everything
organized.
Your comment about ever-increasing memory usage is
concerning. Do
you see this while deploying your library, or while writing
values? If
you write to values very fast (like in an untimed loop) for an extended
period
of time memory usage will increase as the variable buffers
increase.
Please elaborate more on this topic and let me know what happens if you
separate your variables into multiple libraries. I was not able
to reproduce this on a similarly spec'd computer using 10 libraries of
500 variables each.
You can programmatically undeploy libraries using the delete process VI
on the DSC Engine Control palette in LabVIEW. Use this VI in combination
with the get process list VI to quickly remove all currently deployed
libraries.
Also, regarding your question about why variables sometimes show up the
Published Variable Monitor window; the different utilities you described may
use different methods to get that variable list. These methods behave
differently depending on how stressed the Shared Variable Engine is. If
you're in the middle of loading a library with 5000 variables I'm not surprised
that the list won't get populated immediately in the Published Variable Monitor
window. After the library successfully loads though, you should be able
to refresh the view and see all the variables.
Regards,
Nick F
LabVIEW R&D
~~

Shared Variable Engine Crashing

I'm using Labview 8.6.1 and DSC module 8.6.1. Shared variable engine just started crashing as soon as it tries to start. I know you guys are going to say reinstall labview, but it's in a remote location and the install disks are not there. Is there anything else that can be done to fix this? I've rebooted and restarted everything I can think of.

Ok bare with me, alot has happened here and thank you for the help. The error that I was experiencing occurred anytime Windows started. The first thing that would popup would be an error message saying that the Shared Variable Engine had died. This error occurred before I even thought about opening LabView. I am sure that the Shared Variable Engine It was the general Windows error message with the option to "send" or "don't send". If I then started LabView after that and tried deploying my variables by right clicking my library and pressing "Deploy All", LabView would popup the normal box that shows the status of variable deployment. It would almost immediately fail deployment and then a few seconds after that I would receive the same error I got when I started up Windows (Shared Variable Engine failed). I went to the services in Windows and tried restarting the Shared Variable Engine from there. I would start it and then a few seconds later it would stop and give me the same error. I tried doing the same thing from the Distributed System Manager. Same Result. Same Error.
I found a section on this site about people having problems with C++ Runtime errors that would basically cause the same thing to happen. Their Shared Variable Engine would fail. The advise I found there led me to the Distributed System Manager. It said to right click on the libraries and remove all the processes or "end process". What I had were two libraries there. One that I was using and one that I wasn't. I was able to end the process for the one that I wasn't using but not for the one that I was using for my current project. I removed that process and restarted Labview and I deployed my variables and got the same error. No luck. Until, I restarted Labview again and deployed my variables again and it magically healed itself. Maybe I didn't wait long enough for the process to stop, not sure. My variables deployed, I opened up my VI and everything was working great. I am assuming that by removing that unwanted process, I found my fix. But I guess I can't be sure. That process, which was just a library that I had created for another project and was no longer being used, had been there for a long time (6 months). And I was having no issues to speak of. So I guess my ultimate question is what the heck happened that caused all this. I'm sure its bad form to have a process running that isn't needed, that's my fault and I will certainly be more aware of that in the future. I just wish I knew what caused my problems so that they won't happen again.
Any thoughts?

How do I install Shared Variable Engine on a computer not having Labview?

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