LabVIEW sure loves to crash for stupid reasons.

[BillMe]

I have, over the years, been plagued by LabVIEW crashing unexpectedly when I'm doing seemingly innocuous operations during development. The crashes seem to have started when LabVIEW Project came along. Every version since has done this to me. I'm currently using LabVIEW 2015 and I can expect a crash at least once a day (NI must have a ton of crash reports from me).

I just got a crash after creating a virtual folder in a library in my project. The vast majority of these crashes are the infamous 0xC0000005 (memory access violation) which "usually" means a null pointer was involved.

Sigh, maybe I should go back to Visual Studio. Sure it will take some longer time to get the same job done, but at least it has never crashed on me for adding something to my project, or while I'm typing in some source, or editing a property. Sheesh. 

[Blokk]

I have no idea what is special in you, but I do not get crash reports as often as you 🙂 When I do, I can usually figure out the reason, if the problem is repeatable. I can always find a solution in such cases, if the crash is due to a bug which is under fixing status (or the workaround is known). I just cannot remember to any case when I got a crash during project operations like you mentioned. Can you try to reproduce the crash? What is special in your system? OS, LV, version and bitness? Do you get these crashes only with a specific PC, or other systems are also effected?

[shansen1]

Strange. I had similar problems with LabVIEW 2012-2013, but since LabVIEW 2014 and up I have had far fewer crashes (one crash every couple of months?). LabVIEW 2015 is one of the most stable versions yet.

Ironically I've had Visual Studio 2012 crash on me too many times to count, especially when trying to render XAML dynamically.

[BillMe]

I can't reproduce the crash because I have no idea what is triggering it. It is a spurious random memory access violation. It could happen when I'm doing practically anything with my project, e.g.,, adding a virtual folder, or adding a file, or working in the block diagram. The only thing I can say with any confidence is the chance of a crash is highest after my IDE session has been going for some time (~a couple of hours).

I am normally doing my work on my company laptop, but I've seen the same exact installation crash on a PXI controller in the same way. I've tried uninstall/reinstall with no luck. The built executable runs all day, it's the development environment I'm frustrated with.

[Blokk]

I'm currently using LabVIEW 2015 and I can expect a crash at least once a day (NI must have a ton of crash reports from me).

...it's the development environment I'm frustrated with.

I guess you feel that having a crash once a day is not normal 🙂

Do you see people reporting such frequent crashes in this forum for example? I do not...

I think I have a crash like once per 2 months, but maybe even less frequent. I even remember the last one, when I tried to copy paste a png decoration with crazy large resolution into the FP. It was I think LV2014, and I even cannot crash LV2015 in this way anymore, guess bug got fixed...

I use LV2014 and LV2015 on several desktop PCs and laptops, and I do not see such frequent crashes during development. I do not know, but is there no way to find the root source of these crashes?

[CMal]

I was also seeing a lot of random crashes with LabVIEW 2015.  Probably about twice a day.  I upgraded to 2016 about a month ago, and it seems a lot better.  I only have anecdotal evidence, but crashes are now down to a few times a week.

[Blokk]

IMHO NI should create a special poll in the forum. If hundreds/thousands of people fill it reporting about the frequency of LV crashes and also giving lots of other info, like other software used on that particular PC (antivirus soft, etc...). After a massive data mining / analysis we might see some pattern...? I have no idea why some people experience very frequent crashes, and others (like me) almost nothing...

By the way, CMal and BillMe: what kind of antivirus do you use? I use McAfee and recently mainly Microsoft Security Essentials. What OS do you use? Win7 or Win10? x64? I use Win7 x64 and also 32bits (due to a spectrometer soft only runs on 32 bit Windows).

[SunshineDesign]

I am using Labview 2014 SP1 64 bit on Windows 7 64 bit and my LabVIEW crashes all the time while working development. I have had interaction with NI LabVIEW team and they have not been able to help me. It also occurs with 2015 64 bit. Random crashes while developing. NI suspected it was a Ladybug Power Sensor driver. I built an app that reads the Power Sensors once a second and ran it for over a week without crashing, so not longer believe it is the Ladtbug driver. NI has NOT been able to figure out why and have offered no solution. Just this morning alone over a 3 hour period LabVIEW crashed 11 times and I had to restart to get thru my code edits and compilation. I worked with NI team for months and they were not able to resolve or figure out why. So you are not alone.

[BowenM]

The most common crash I see is an access violation when attempting an undo operation (ctrl-z).  In small projects it never seems to happen, but once a project grows above a few hundred vis or so it seems to happen much more frequently.

[Blokk]

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@BowenM wrote:

The most common crash I see is an access violation when attempting an undo operation (ctrl-z).  In small projects it never seems to happen, but once a project grows above a few hundred vis or so it seems to happen much more frequently.

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Hmm, the size of the project can be an important factor then? This would explain why I do not see crashes: i never develop large apps, usually the number of VIs stays below 100-200... Also due to my OCD, i only keep open max 3-4 VIs at the same time 🙂 So for sure, i am not a good reference here i have to admit...