We’re upgrading from 3.0.0f0 to 6.0.0, and have tried 2 different computers, 2 USB B cables, and 2 different RIOs (the other one is currently on 5.0.0f1 firmware). We can still access the web dashboard on both, and have tried the imaging on both static IP and DHCP. We also tried running the imaging tool as administrator, updating firmware via web dashboard, and booting the roboRIO into safe mode. Windows Defender Firewall is off.
We also tried formatting the RIO that’s on 5.0 and got a similar error. We’re going to call NI once they re-open tomorrow.
An update: we tried a third computer, this one using windows 7. It worked with the RIO that was on firmware version 5.0, but threw an error (though a different one this time - “miscellaneous operation failure”) on the 3.0 firmware RIO. We duplicated this on a second 3.0 firmware RIO.
We decided to try to go from 3.0 to 5.0, and then from 5.0 to 6.0. Unfortunately, the tool throws the same error when we try to use it to install the 5.0 firmware, as well, and updating the firmware to 5.0 via. the webdash doesn’t work. We may next try using a not-yet-updated computer to migrate to 5.0 with last year’s firmware update tool.
I’d like to express some displeasure at NI for releasing such a buggy mess of a tool, given that the release date is the start of build season. If this were a month or two earlier, it’d be different - but we need this time to develop actual functionality, and it is immensely frustrating to waste it dealing with this.
I had a team encounter this issue at our kickoff event. We resolved their issue by changing the computer name to only contain alphanumeric characters (ie LAPTOP-01 -> LAPTOP01). However, renaming the computer forces a reboot, which may also solve the issue as mentioned above.
Make sure you are running the roboRIO imaging tool as administrator
Make sure there is no firewall or anti-virus in the computer that is blocking the network connection to the robot or denying access to the files (for examples, to the directory where the firmware is stored)
Try setting the roboRIO in safe mode (hold the reset button until the STATUS LED lights up).
When you are putting the roboRIO into Safe Mode (or really whenever it is failing the upload), is the status light continuously flashing or is it flashing a code (2 flashes then off for a period or 3 flashes and then off)? If continuous, then you’ll definitely need NI as that is a catastrophic issue that you probably won’t be correcting yourself.
We have updated ours successfully with no problems from 3.0 to 6.0. Did you make sure to disable all other network adapters including Wifi and Bluetooth?
In Alex’s case, the issue still occured, but +2 for working off of a clean install. In 2018 and 2019, after structuring our installation process more with internal documents detailing order, **(providing all is done on a clean install of windows, (**we have been able to install a development environment, all National Instruments software minus LabView (i.e. imaging tool, driver station) on the first try and have everything work.
+1, this was the only hiccup we found when updating firmware in the beta and after kickoff, but one should also consider we also had RIOs starting at versions higher than 3.0 and we had done clean installs onto laptops we had tested this on.
on a Windows 10 Pro Education (unactivated) clean install PC we found it unnecessary.
Our next strategy will likely be to find a computer with last year’s updater still installed up on it, and use it to move to 5.0 as an intermediate step.
I would like to reiterate that I find this kind of unreliability unacceptable in such a crucial tool released at such a late time. NI is not doing very much to entice me (or anyone on my team, or many other teams) to become a future, willing customer.
This worked on our remaining 3 RIOs. The full process I ended up using was as follows:
Rename the desktop computer to have only letters in the name.
Install NI System Configuration
Install the CompactRIO drivers
Turn off all network adapters except for the USBLAN driver
Run NI MAX as administrator
Boot the RIO into safe mode
Follow the instructions here and upgrade the firmware to v5
Reboot the RIO into safe mode
Upgrade the firmware to v6
Use the regular imaging tool to format the RIO to the correct image
For one of the remaining RIOs I didn’t have to boot into safe mode, turn off adapters, or run as administrator, but for the other two I just did all of those at once after it wasn’t working, so not all of those steps may be necessary.
We saw this error during beta but NI was unable to repeat the problem. We found a workaround at the time of installing labview even though we are a c++ team. So this might be worth trying.
