Chief Delphi - Imaging tool for the new 4-slot cRIO

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Re: Imaging tool for the new 4-slot cRIO

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhersh (Post 1099696)

It's in the language update of your choice.

As Joe said, the image tool looks in the language installation for the image. Each language has an image included so the languages don't have to update in lock-step when new images are shipped.

Brad

Re: Imaging tool for the new 4-slot cRIO

A couple of things that helped me find my cRIO and image it.

Finding cRIO with imaging tool
0. Assign static IP address and subnet masks as described above.
1. Disable any other internet connections (i.e. wireless)
2. For Windows XP SP2 turn off all firewalls and auto software updates

Format cRIO to latest image (i.e. v43)
1. Use a hub/switch to format.

Re: Imaging tool for the new 4-slot cRIO

Folks,

We finally made my way through this maze and uploaded my first test code on the FRC II. In addition to all the requirements listed above, you need to add two more:

1. Use a simple switch or hub linked only to the cRIO and your PC. Do not use the Linksys wireless router.

2. DISABLE all Ethernet ports except the hardwired port linked to the hub or switch. Simply turning off the radio is not sufficient, you must disable the port.

I hope this helps. I really appreciate the support of the folks in this forum. Good luck.

PGR

Re: Imaging tool for the new 4-slot cRIO

Like I said in my previous post, to simplify things to only deal with minimum changes, connect your laptop to the cRIO directly with an ethernet cable (for the old cRIO, connect to port 1 and disconnect port 2). Then you don't have to deal with switches/hub/AP/Bridge.

Re: Imaging tool for the new 4-slot cRIO

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikets (Post 1101696)

For some computers, the Ethernet driver on the PC takes too long to recover when the cRIO reboots (and the link is lost). If there is a Switch in the path between the cRIO and the PC, the Switch will prevent the PC from loosing link even when the cRIO is rebooting. This will allow the imaging to succeed where it may otherwise fail. That is the reason using a switch in between may be helpful.

Re: Imaging tool for the new 4-slot cRIO

Good to know. I am surprise about this though. I understand when the cRIO is rebooting, the link is lost. If the PC ethernet takes time to "recover" and so does the Ethernet switch (reestablishing link to the cRIO). But I suppose most of the swtiches may be able to recover faster than some of the PC ethernet adapters. Also, if the "formatting timeout" is short enough that it doesn't even allow the ethernet adapter to "recover", it's really too short. Any plan to fix this issue in the future?

Re: Imaging tool for the new 4-slot cRIO

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikets (Post 1101737)

The problem is not recovering link. The problem is the link takes some time to recover and then it has to reassign the IP address settings and get the stack all functional again. This seems to take quite some time on some machines. The timeout is already really long (60 seconds). Since we don't know what the upper bound is on this (hard to believe 60 is not enough, and yet some people still report time-outs), we think this work-around is a reasonable solution if you have an outlier PC setup. For most teams, it is not necessary.

-Joe

Re: Imaging tool for the new 4-slot cRIO

We have a rookie kit of parts this year (I have mentored other teams in the past) and ran into this issue. I had already disabled the firewall when I ran across this thread. I first tried fixing the net mask from 255.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.0. That did not fix it. I then disabled the wireless network interface on the classmate and that did the trick.

So a fresh install of the classmate and the 4 slot cRIO out of the box direct connected with a cross over reproduced this same error until we disabled the wireless network interface. I may try putting the net mask back to 255.0.0.0 and see if that changes anything, but it is working now.

Not sure if that will help in the trouble shooting or not.

Thanks!

Randy

Re: Imaging tool for the new 4-slot cRIO

Quote:

Originally Posted by steinra (Post 1102340)

I then disabled the wireless network interface on the classmate and that did the trick.

Just checking -- you don't mean simply that you pressed the button to turn off the wireless radio, right? You actually went into the networking configuration controls in Windows, selected the icon representing the wireless LAN adapter, and chose the menu option to disable it?

Re: Imaging tool for the new 4-slot cRIO

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikets (Post 1099500)

Thanks for the info. I got it successfully formatted. Here is a quick way of how I did it without disabling/reconfiguring a lot of things on the network.
- Disabled the wireless adapter of my laptop.
- Configure my wired ethernet adapter on my laptop to have a static IP address of 10.xx.xx.6 with a mask of 255.255.255.0.
- Connect my laptop to the 4-slot cRIO directly with an ethernet wire. I don't need a cross over cable because either the 4-slot cRIO or my laptop has autosense.
- Power up the cRIO and ping it from my laptop to make sure it sees it (ping 10.xx.xx.2).
- Run the cRIO imaging tool and select all the options and firware you need and click Apply.
- When it finished, you are done.
- Remember to configure your laptop's ethernet adapter back to auto IP address and auto DNS.
By doing the above, the only network configuration I changed was my laptop's ethernet adapter. The resulting network will have only my laptop and the cRIO with a narrow mask of 255.255.255.0. So the enumeration of devices should be very quick.
Curious though, since the imaging tool already did enumeration of the cRIO and showed its proper IP address (10.xx.xx.2) and I have "selected" the cRIO, why can't the imaging tool just use the 10.xx.xx.2 IP address to communicate with the cRIO when formatting instead of trying to enumerate it again on a wider network mask (255.0.0.0)? Or at the very least, lengthen the timeout to allow enough time to enumerate the subnet. After all, the initial "scanning" allowed enough time to "find" the cRIO so there is no reason why "format reboot" cannot use the same timeout length.

This worked for our team. Thanks for the post.

Go FIRST!