MacOS LV 2011 VIs with MacOS 2020 LV Community Edition?

[rmp]

Hi folks,

I just got LV 2020 Community Edition for MacOS (LVCE) for a newer MacBook Air (nMBA). It installed and launches fine. I've been using LV 2011 MacOS on a 2013 MBA for many years now, so I have a wealth of VIs that I'd like to bring over to LVCE... it's not working... anyone else running into this problem?:

 - the 2011 VIs have the correct LV icon on the nMBA, so they're recognized as LV files

 - I can create a simple "hello World" vi on LVCE, so I know LV 2020 is working

 - LVCE will not open a 2011 VI... no error message... it just quits opening... like nothing happened.

 - I tried creating a simple VI in LVCE, and including a 2011 VI as a subVI in the block diagram... same thing... I can select it in the file browser, but it starts to show up as a blank VI icon in the block diagram... but after a second or two, it just acts like nothing was selected... no error message, and no icon in the block diagram.

Any and all insights, ideas, experiments welcomed...

[rmp]

It looks like VIs under 58KB in size works... I had a blank VI open and did a "select a VI" to select my existing 2011 LV (MacOS) VIs: 5KB VI added, 10KB added, 15KB added... 57 KB added. 94KB did not add. And, once a VI add fails, I can't add any VIs from "select a VI".

I also tried adding front panel terminals just incase LVCE didn't like VIs that weren't subVIs (by virtue of terminals on front panel). No joy... did not help.

[rolfk]

This is an obscure and definitely unexpected bug. LabVIEW 2020, Community Edition or not, should be simply able to open a LabVIEW 2011 VI. In fact it should be able to open any VI from version 6.0 upwards, created on any LabVIEW supported platform as long as it is not corrupted! And it does so for me on the other more dominant platform without any issues.

Have you a possibility to try opening such a VI on a modern Windows version of LabVIEW? Do you care to append one of those VIs that fails to load on your computer in LabVIEW 2020 to this thread for others here to try on their computer?

My guess is that your VIs got corrupted in some way for whatever reason and it's more a case of the VIs throwing off any newer LabVIEW version, not just the LabVIEW for Mac 2020 Community Edition.

[rmp]

Thanks Rolf,

I'm considering your insights as good news... it seems that LVCE should be working like their other versions... although I was worried because I was shocked (pleasantly) that NI was making LV2020 available for free.

I took the files from my nMBA (that could possibly be corrupt) and copied them to a Win10 machine running LV 2016 Student Edition. The files loaded just fine on that PC.

I have also reinstalled LVCE on the nMBA and I get the same results.

So, I'm guessing there is something about my settings in LVCE, or something about the nMBA configuration. Here are specs on my nMBA (which I just inherited from my son after he finished his PHD work with it... he did not use LV):

MBA (Retina 13-inch, 2020)

macOS Catalina, 10.15.6

[rmp]

More news...

I upgraded the nMBA to macOS Big Sur 11.3.1... I get the same problems. I say "problems" (plural), because I think it's time to add a bit more detail... the other LVCE problems that I'm seeing (in both flavors of macOS):

 - When I launch LVCE, either by double-clicking a VI, or launching LVCE icon, I get a blank VI... even if I turn off the LV start up screen

 - often (maybe 90% of the time), if I "quit" (from menu) LVCE, LVCE hangs and I have to macOS FORCE QUIT. Sometimes, I don't have to FORCE QUIT, but LVCE quits and macOS provides a "Problem Report" window to describe the ("quit unexpectedly") problem... I've filled this out once.

[rmp]

Rolf, I can't tell... are you running LVCE on macOS? Catalina or Big Sur? Without problems with past VIs above 98KB in size?

The fact that I could copy my VIs from the suspect laptop to another system without problems is pretty strong evidence that those VIs are not corrupt. So, I'm suspicious that the problem is closer to LVCE/macOS.

I'd love to hear from someone that has LVCE on macOS...

[rolfk]

No I’m having an old 2010 iMac with OS X Mountain Lion and LabVIEW 2014 x86 and x64. So I haven’t been willing to install a newer version on that machine. It’s weird and sounds either like a corruption or serious bug. 

[rmp]

I agree Rolf, I think this is a weird problem. I believe I've eliminated the possibility of corrupt VIs, and corrupt download or install, and corrupt OS. So, I'm starting to think this is just a bad build of LVCE for MacOS. The fact that no one (so far) can confirm a working LVCE on MacOS makes me think that we just don't have a large MacOS LV community on new MBAs... so, this problem is not showing up on NI's radar yet.

I have a lot of confidence in NI. LV, for my applications, has been extremely robust over the years. So, I suspect that we'll get a new build eventually.

[rmp]

Bummer, same problem on LVCE 2021... small files open... a 94KB vi did not open.

Still no one else seeing this problem????

[rmp]

Some new... maybe important info:

I updated to LV 2022 Q3 CE. Same problem loading my app. So, I started ripping my app apart to see if half/quarter/eighth/etc of the app would load. What I finally ran into was:

 A problem loading/opening 2011 VIs with Pict Rings in 2022 Q3 CE. Attached are three different VIs, that only have a Pict Ring:

 - "pic ring blank 2011.vi": this does load fine in 2022

 - "pic ring 2011.vi": this does not load in 2022. It is a pict ring with four entries that are small screen grabs (the screen grabs do not have equal dimensions)

- "pic ring migo 2011.vi": this does not load in 2022. It is a pict ring with four equal sized pics.