No communications in DS, camera show on DB

[NeatNit]

Windows XP Professional SP3 (Hebrew unfortunately), using LabView.

As the title says - our driver station never gives us a green light for Communications (nor Robot Code), however the Dashboard DOES show us the camera image. In the Diagnostics tab, Enet Link is green and Robot is green.

Several times we have tried a complete removal and reinstallation of the entire programming suite from the 2011 kit of parts, with no change. (we did of course install all relavant updates from here each time.)
Worth mentioning is that some of the times after a reinstall, the driver station was nowhere to be found, and trying to install the DS and Utilities updates completed instantly, probably without doing anything.

My teammate tells me he's tried to transfer robot code while in that state, and it failed, but I have not witnessed it myself.

Everything works fine on our other computer (Windows 7, also Hebrew), so it cannot be a CRIO problem

Please help! What are we doing wrong?

[Radical Pi]

DS Update is the important one here. In the Diagnostics screen, DS Version should say 02.27.11.00 (at least on the ones that work here). Also, in the Setup screen, double-check that your team number is set to 1577. Click on Choose NIC below that as well, and make sure that the proper network interface is set on Wired (NOT Manual configuration). Try disabling your computer's wireless chip as well if you have one.

If all this fails, try using NetConsole to check for any unusual messages

[NeatNit]

The DS version is 02.27.11.00 like you said. We've double-checked that before... Setup screen is set correctly. I'm not so sure how Choose NIC works, but I selected the one we're using (it was already selected), no change. For the record, on our other computer, we sometimes connect using Ethernet and sometimes using wifi, and we never had to change that option.

The computer with the problems is a desktop, and for now we're not connecting a USB wireless dongle to it until we get communications working wired.


I have never used NetConsole, and apparently I have no idea how to use it: I've tried entering 10.15.77.2 in Machine Address - nothing happens. Pressing "Auto" causes the Machine Address to blank.. I can't find any instructions/documentation on how to use it and I can't see what I'm doing wrong. Could you give me some quick instructions?

(we've tried connecting it both to the broken and working computer, using a normal Ethernet cable)

[Greg McKaskle]

The diagnostic tab shows the results of pinging the various addresses. According to that page, the cRIO address and laptop address are fine. Similarly, the camera is reachable by the dashboard, so the IP address are fine. Have you deployed code or run code interactively? The more troubling issues that the communication light is not on. This makes it sound like the controller dip switch is set to safe or no app. Please check that next, and attempt to deploy code.

Greg Mckaskle

[Joe Ross]

Since this problem only occurs on one computer, I'd check to see if there was a firewall or antivirus interfering with the driver station software. It could be only blocking the communications port and not the camera port.

I don't think netconsole will help since this seems confined to a single driver station computer. However for reference, netconsole must be enabled when imaging he cRIO. It isn't enabled by default.

[NeatNit]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Since this problem only occurs on one computer, I'd check to see if there was a firewall or antivirus interfering with the driver station software. It could be only blocking the communications port and not the camera port.

I don't think netconsole will help since this seems confined to a single driver station computer. However for reference, netconsole must be enabled when imaging he cRIO. It isn't enabled by default.

THANK YOU!!!


It's always such a stupid and obvious problem... You, sir, are awesome.