NI MAX cannot see / looses network instrument

Question

There appears to be a bug with NI MAX where a network instrument which was previously configured suddently dissappears and when we attempt to re-establish the instrument, MAX claims that it cannot find the instrument.
This was seen on 4 different stations, all sharing the similar behavior.  This was also seen at a completely different customer where the configuration was setup by a fourth person.  At client # 1 there are 4 stations.  They were setup by 3 different people using the same instructions.  Everything was fine on all 4 stations.  All of a sudden, the information dissappears from the network instrument list and it is not possible to re-configure the network instrument within MAX.  A similar behavior was reported by another client which is totally different than the first client.  NI MAX was configured by a different person than at client 1, possibly using different steps (although it is quite simple to setup a network device within NI MAX).
NI MAX at client #1 are versions 5.40f0 and 14.0.0a2.
NI MAX at client # 2 is version at least 14.0.0a2.
If we copy an exported settings file from another station, the network devices are restored and it is possible to use the network instrument.  However, if you attempt to setup the instrument manually, because MAX cannot find it automatically, it is not possible to validate the instrument and complete the setup.  Even if you cheat and complete the setup, the PC will not communicate with the instrument via VISA.  However, it is possible to communicate with the instrument outside NI MAX.  The instrument is seen by the PC and does respond to ping requests.
See image below.
When trying to validate the instrument, NI MAX responds with the fact that it could not open a VISA session via TCPIP.  
My first question is:  why does the instrument dissappear in the first place?
Rebooting the PC did not help.  Basic troubleshooting did not resolve the issue.  This is not the first time I work with NI MAX and with network instruments; however, this is the first time I see them dissappear fromNI MAX.  
I did not find anything while searching for posts for similar issues, so I do not know if anyone else has seen this.  I did encounter a similar description for a bug that was supposidly fixed in MAX 5.4
Does anyone at NI have a clue at how to make NI MAX more solid with respect to network instruments?
Thanks,
RayR
Attachments:
badMAX.png ‏190 KB

Answer 1

Hello AK2DM,
I was just north of you last week in Sedona.  Beautiful place.  Our next trip in your area will take us to Phoenix.  We'll have to get together.  
There are no dependencies on any NI Services that I am aware of.  A customer just reported a similar issue at their Penang CM site.  They are now in a bit of a panic.  I did not work on the code at that site, but 3 sites, 2 customers reporting the same issue???  That's not a coincidence.  Something is wrong with MAX.  The only way to recover is to import the configuration file within NI MAX.  It was impossible to simply scan for the instrument to get MAX to communicate with the instrument, although the PC, that has NI MAX installed, is able to ping the instrument.
I may have seen a similar issue a few years ago with another client where we kept loosing the network communication, but gave up and switched to GPIB.  At the time, we thought the network switches were causing issues and blamed it on the network.  Today, I may think otherwise...  I do not know what to investigate to verify why this is occurring.  Strangely enough, these systems ran for a year before we started seeing the symptoms.  I thought windoze upgrades was turned off...  It may be related to some recent upgrade, because we only started seeing these unusual behaviors since November (?).   I can't remember exactly when we first saw it. Late fall / early winter??
It is strange that you started seeing an odd behavior around the same time.  Running windoze, right?  I never liked windoze...  Everyone should move to Linux/Unix/Solaris.  LOL!