Cannot find network NI0DAQmx Devices. Test Panel button grayed out

[Dynamotive]

Hi

I have a Dell server T710 Win 2008 R2 64 bit. Installed is NidaqMX 9.3. The Find Network NI-DAQmx Devices dialog box cannot find my NI ENET 9163 carrier with an NI 9215 card. This card has a static IP address in the same subnet as the LAN port on the PC. I can ping the device.

However in the Find Network NI-DAQmx Devices dialog I can add the board manually by specifying the IP address. This seems to half work in as much as it registers the card in max but the test panels button is grayed out.

I have installed Nidaq MX 9.3 on my win 7 64 bit laptop and I can find the card properly and test it. Clearly there is something wrong with software config on the Dell but I have no idea what. Any help is appreciated. I have tripped checked IP addresses etc. I have also disabled the other 3 network ports on the Dell server in case that was the issue.

Thank you

Andrew

[Liam_A]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your post.

I have found something that may be of intrest to you at the link below:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/9510F0B2E37BBFB5862578150063DF91?OpenDocument

It will probably be worth while updating your firmware at the following (mentioned in above link):

http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/2367/lang/en

Have you ever had the chassis working correctly?

Many thanks,

[Dynamotive]

Hi Liam,

Thank you for your reply. Further information...

We can get M&A to detect the modules but only if we disable all other network adaptors. This sounds like a networking issue

Our internal network is

Network with NI modules connected

192.168.3.203

255.255.252.0

no gateway

no dns

The other adaptors are

192.168.61.2

255.255.255.0

no gateway

no dns

172.16.4.51

255.255.252.0

no gateway

no dns

172.17.4.51

255.255.252.0

no gateway

no dns

But as I said if any one of the above is enable the M&A can no longer detect the modules. We can always ping the modules, if we manually attempt to add the modules by typing in the IP address M&A recognises them but does not allow the test panels to work.

I would imagine that NI developers have considered the case of M&A working with multiple network adaptors installed so someone know the answer...

Kind Regards

Andrew

[Dynamotive]

Hi

UK NI technical support cannot solve this problem and I am desperate!

A reminder of the problem, I cannot see either programatically or with M&A explorer remote devices (ENET-9163's with 9234 and 9215 in them) with a Dell server computer that has a 4 port network card. If I disable all but the network adaptor with the same subnet as the remote devices and reboot then it works. I can renable the other network adaptors once I have established communications programatically and can continue to establish communcations programatically again and again but in order to use M&A I have to disable all again and renable only the adapator designated for NI communications.

I would be happy to pay someone to come and fix this (in the UK Midlands). It must be possible but I dont know enough about networking.

Thanks

Andrew

[Dynamotive]

Anyone know how to get Measurement and Automation explorer work with PC's with more than one network card?

It cant find remote network devices if more than one network adaptor is enabled.

Thank for any help or pointers...

Andrew

[Corby_B]

Hello Andrew,

Thanks for your posts. I see you are having an issue connecting ENET-9163 devices to a DELL server with 4 Ethernet ports. 

A few questions for you:

1. How many ENET devices do you have. 

2. Is there anything between the DELL and ENET device? Your network is set up as static but talk about multiple devices? Do you have a network topology map or schematic?

3. What are your ENET IP address settings?

4. What DELL server specifically are you using?

5. What are the other 3 ports connected to?

6. Do you have any proxy servers or limitations of ports being closed due to a windows firewall?

I have seen a situation where the test panels and self test is grayed out but I was able to over come this by simply deleting the device and re adding it to MAX. This was on a DELL windows server 2008 R2 with 2 ether net ports. The ENET network was private with a router handling the IP addressing for me with a 192.168.xxx.xxx network with subnet 255.255.255.0.

The fact that you are having an issue only when you are turning on the other network ports does seem a bit odd. On Monday (its Friday evening right now) I will be able to get access to our Windows 2008 server that has 20+ ENET-9163's attached to it to see if I can reproduce what you are seeing. If you could get back to me on these questions before then that would be great.

One option to try, 

Can you put a router between the DELL and the ENET device? Then set that port to obtain an IP address automatically. By using a router this will ensure that all the network traffic is routed appropriately. What this will do is make the router handle all the network traffic instead of relying on the negotiation between the DELL and 9163.

I can tell you that I have personally seen a customer using a DELL server with 4 Ethernet ports to communicate with multiple 9163's out in the field. They were using a router infrastructure to manage the network traffic though. 

Let me know if this helps and I look forward to working with you on this issue to resolution.

Corby

Network cDAQ R & D Product Support Engineer

[Dynamotive]

Hello Corby,

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

1. Currently I have a 9234 and 9215 both in 9163 carriers

2. There have been various types of switches but the problem occurs even if I connect directly with a direct cable connection or use a very basic unmanged switch

3. 192.168.3.11 and 192.168.3.23 both on 255.255.252.0. The server has one of its IP addresses on 192.168.3.204. I can ping the devices no problem.

4. It is Dell R710, Windows 2008 R2 64 bit

5. The other 3 ports are connected to SCADA systems, (my application is taking data off a remote device na dmaking it available to other devices). The server is not on a domain, all IP's are static. The problem occurs even if there are no devices connected to the other ports (with the ports being enabled)

6. I have turned off all firewalls. I have tried this with a plain unmanaged switch to make sure there was no funny business happening in the production switch. I can ping the devices, it is just that M&A cannot see them when selecting the find network devices. It seems that once I have established communcations, with only one port active I can access the devices from code, but cannot use M&A until I disable all the other ports and re-boot. Its almost as if M&A can only deal properly with the first port it sees in the network adaptor enumeration.

I will be in front of the Dell tommorrow, and I am going to go through it very carefully once more to be sure but I think I already tried deleting the existing entries for the ENET devices and searching again.

I cant change the network topolgy and put a router in place, in the lab I have this issue with a simple setup, but in production there will be 5 ENET devices and about 10 other propeitary IP devices all statically defined in their firmware, all of these ethernet devices will be installed subsea and will have a fibre link back to shore, once this is installed I wont be able to press the reset button on the NI modules.

Thanks once more. I will try and give you some more information later tommorrow.

Andrew

Hello Andrew,

Thanks for your posts. I see you are having an issue connecting ENET-9163 devices to a DELL server with 4 Ethernet ports. 

A few questions for you:

1. How many ENET devices do you have. 

2. Is there anything between the DELL and ENET device? Your network is set up as static but talk about multiple devices? Do you have a network topology map or schematic?

3. What are your ENET IP address settings?

4. What DELL server specifically are you using?

5. What are the other 3 ports connected to?

6. Do you have any proxy servers or limitations of ports being closed due to a windows firewall?

I have seen a situation where the test panels and self test is grayed out but I was able to over come this by simply deleting the device and re adding it to MAX. This was on a DELL windows server 2008 R2 with 2 ether net ports. The ENET network was private with a router handling the IP addressing for me with a 192.168.xxx.xxx network with subnet 255.255.255.0.

The fact that you are having an issue only when you are turning on the other network ports does seem a bit odd. On Monday (its Friday evening right now) I will be able to get access to our Windows 2008 server that has 20+ ENET-9163's attached to it to see if I can reproduce what you are seeing. If you could get back to me on these questions before then that would be great.

One option to try, 

Can you put a router between the DELL and the ENET device? Then set that port to obtain an IP address automatically. By using a router this will ensure that all the network traffic is routed appropriately. What this will do is make the router handle all the network traffic instead of relying on the negotiation between the DELL and 9163.

I can tell you that I have personally seen a customer using a DELL server with 4 Ethernet ports to communicate with multiple 9163's out in the field. They were using a router infrastructure to manage the network traffic though. 

Let me know if this helps and I look forward to working with you on this issue to resolution.

Corby

Network cDAQ R & D Product Support Engineer

[Dynamotive]

Hi Corby,

I can confirm that M&A cannot find remote devices even if I delete the existin entries with more than one network adaptor present.

I have also found out this issue is still present on another network adaptor - I swopped the 4 port adaptor to a 2 port adaptor.

I also found out that even the precense of a USB 3G modem causes the issue, as soon as I disable all ports regardles of which card they are on and serach for devices they are found.

What is needed is for someone in NI to look in the code to see what is happening when a user selects "Find Network NI-DAQmx Devices", I would put a small wager on it being related to enumerating all the available network adaptors.

Hope you can help.

Kind Regards

Andrew

[Corby_B · Accepted solution]

Hello Andrew,

I was able to do some testing on our Windows 2008 R2 server. I was able to reproduce this but not as easily as you did. We have 2 network adapters in this server. One way we have solved this is to do the following:

1. Disable IPv6 IP addressing for all network ports.

2. Change the Interface Metric on the network adaptor. We made it high, so a value of 50. You can get to this metric by going to the properties of your network adapter >> properties of your IPv4 >> Advanced on the general tab >> Un select Automatic Metric and change to static. (inputs are 1-60). Do this for all your network adapters. Since we have set this setting we have never seen the issue re occur.  

We have also verified that this does not happen at all on the new cDAQ-9181 chassis. This chassis is intended to replace the ENET-9163. If it is at all possible for your to upgrade I would recommend that option. You should be able to work with your local sales channel to get one to test with. We have 20+ 9181's in this system and have never seen the issue of not being able to communite in MAX to the chassis.

Let me know your results of adjusting the settings I mentioned above.

Thanks!

Corby

Network cDAQ R & D PSE 

[Dynamotive]

Corby,

You are a star!

That seemd to have fixed it. I have only tried changing the Metric at the moment but if I get any issues I will disable IPV6!

Do you know why this fixed it?

Kind Regards

Andrew