NI-DAQmx installation failed (Mac OS X 10.6)

[richdun]

Upon upgrading to Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) this afternoon, I attempted to use NI-DAQmx's configuraiton app (mxbaseconfig), but it crashed shortly after launching and drawing the UI. The same happened with lsdaq and nidatalogger. I tried reinstalling NI-DAQmx 3.3 (from the NI website, updated not too long ago, apparently), and the installation proceeded all the way to "Running package scripts..." step before quickly ending the installation and reporting that the installation had failed. After a clean install of NI-DAQmx (following the uninstall instructions in the text file included), the installation failed at the same step. The three apps above were at least copied into the NI-DAQmx folder, but continue to crash.

Is there a crash log somewhere I should be able to read to find out why this is happening? Could it simply be incompatibility with 10.6, and if so, is there an update planned to address this?

Thanks. 

[BrianG]

Is NI-DAQmx written in PowerPC code?  If so, installing Rosetta might help in this circumstance.

Message Edited by BrianG on 08-31-2009 02:50 PM

[richdun]

Good idea - but I checked the binaries (lsdaq, nidatalogger, and mxbaseconfig) and they report to be Universal binaries. I tried checking "Open using Rosetta" to force PowerPC execution, and the same launch, show the UI, then crash resulted in all three cases. 

[Brandon_B]

Hello richdun,

Thank you for using NI forums.  If you look at the DAQmx Base 3.3 readme it mentions that DAQmx Base 3.3 only supports MAC OS X v10.4-v10.5.x (leopard).  We don't officially support 10.6 (snow leopard) just yet.  We have  done some testing on the beta release but there could've been changes made since then.  Nevertheless, we can still try and troubleshoot the issue; I just wanted you to understand that any of these potential solutions may, or may not, work.

So did you have your NI software installed before you upgraded to 10.6?  One thing you can try is completely uninstalling all LabVIEW and DAQmx software from your computer and then installing again.  To do this you will need to run the uninstall script.  After running the uninstall script, you should run disc utility and make to repair all the permissions on your hard drive.  Then, you can try installing again.  An alternative to the uninstall script would be to use something like app cleaner to remove all the files associated with what you tried to install.  

As I mentioned before, this may, or may not, work due to the recent release of 10.6 and the fact that we haven't fully tested it yet.  We will be testing it soon to verify compatibility and fix any problems that may occur.

Regards,

[richdun]

As I had noted in my original post, yes, it was initially installed before upgrading to Snow Leopard, then reinstalled (without uninstalling), then a clean install (after uninstalling).

I'm sure it's just a Snow Leopard thing, as many developers who use custom UIs (i.e., not an Interface Builder / Cocoa UI), among other things, have been having issues. The log files are a bit too cryptic to understand exactly what's tripping it up, but this isn't a mission critical application for me, so I can wait for the update(s).

Thanks.

[moeller0]

Hi Brandon,

I would like to get your estimate when macosx 10.6 will be supported by DAQmx or DAQmxBase? I want to use a ni usb-6009 from matlab using windows XP 32bit and macosx 10.6, it would be great if I could get away with lmatlabs "loadlibrary" on both worlds, or at least a simple recompilation of a simple c-snippet for both. In addition will the 10.6 version also work with 64bit kernels? Thanks for any input or pointer to relevant information...

Sebastian Moeller 

[ned_konz]

I experienced the same installation failure when doing a new install of NI DAQmx Base 3.3 on a clean install of Snow Leopard (followed by an update) on my Macbook.

Using the Console app, and searching for "DAQ" yields the following messages:

9/17/09 11:28:24 PM	Installer[567]	NI-DAQmx Base 3.3.0  Installation Log
9/17/09 11:28:24 PM	Installer[567]	Opened from: /Volumes/NI-DAQmx_Base_3.3.0/NI-DAQmx_Base_3.3.0.mpkg
9/17/09 11:29:13 PM	Installer[567]	Package Authoring Warning: NI-DAQmx_Base_3.3.0.mpkg authorization level is NoAuthorization but was promoted to RootAuthorization for compatibility, ensure authorization level is sufficient to install.
9/17/09 11:29:54 PM	Installer[567]		NI-DAQmx Base 3.3.0 for LabVIEW 8.2: LabVIEW 8.2 must be installed first.
9/17/09 11:29:54 PM	Installer[567]		NI-DAQmx Base 3.3.0 for LabVIEW 8.5: LabVIEW 8.5 must be installed first.
9/17/09 11:29:54 PM	Installer[567]		NI-DAQmx Base 3.3.0 for LabVIEW 8.6: LabVIEW 8.6 must be installed first.
9/17/09 11:29:54 PM	Installer[567]		NI-DAQmx Base 3.3.0 for LabVIEW 2009: LabVIEW 2009 must be installed first.
9/17/09 11:29:54 PM	Installer[567]		Install: "NI-DAQmx Base 3.3.0"
9/17/09 11:29:54 PM	Installer[567]		Install: "NI-DAQmx Base 3.3.0 Common Files"
9/17/09 11:29:54 PM	Installer[567]		Install: "Remove NI-DAQmx Base LabVIEW 7.0 support"
9/17/09 11:29:54 PM	Installer[567]		Install: "Remove NI-DAQmx Base LabVIEW 7.1 support"
9/17/09 11:29:54 PM	Installer[567]		Install: "Remove NI-DAQmx Base LabVIEW 8.0 support"
9/17/09 11:29:54 PM	Installer[567]		Install: "NI-DAQmx Base 3.3.0 for C"
9/17/09 11:29:54 PM	Installer[567]		Install: "NI-DAQmx Base 3.3.0 USB Support"
9/17/09 11:34:38 PM	installd[585]	PackageKit: Install Failed: PKG: post-install scripts for "com.ni.pkg.lv82rte"
Error Domain=PKInstallErrorDomain Code=112 UserInfo=0x101e0db50 "An error occurred while running scripts from the package “LabVIEW82Runtime.pkg”." {
    NSFilePath = "./postinstall";
    NSLocalizedDescription = "An error occurred while running scripts from the package \U201cLabVIEW82Runtime.pkg\U201d.";
    NSURL = "file://localhost/Volumes/NI-DAQmx_Base_3.3.0/NI-DAQmx_Base_3.3.0.mpkg/.packages/nivisai.mpkg/.packages/nispyi.mpkg/.packages/LabVIEW82Runtime.pkg";
    PKInstallPackageIdentifier = "com.ni.pkg.lv82rte";
}

Message Edited by ned_konz on 09-18-2009 08:15 AM

[EEsRULEtheWORLD]

Hi, Sebastian.

Unfortunately, no estimate can be made as to when MacOSX 10.6 will be supported.  Our R&D team is currently developing a version of DAQmx Base that will be supported in MacOSX 10.6, but I am unable to give any information as to when this version will be released.

I apologize for the inconvenience.  I hope you're having a great day!

[sth]

---

EEsRULEtheWORLD wrote: 

Unfortunately, no estimate can be made as to when MacOSX 10.6 will be supported.  Our R&D team is currently developing a version of DAQmx Base that will be supported in MacOSX 10.6, but I am unable to give any information as to when this version will be released.

---

So much for a "great day".  Actually an estimate "can be made" but as the second sentence makes clear, no estimate will be made.

I installed NI-DAQ mx base 3.3 on Mac OSX 10.5.8 and then updated the system to Snow Leopard Mac OS X 10.6.1.  All is well and the NI-DAQmx base functions seem to be working well.  So AFAICT Mac OS X 10.6 seems to be compatible with NI-DAQmx base 3.3.

However, the installer seems to have a problem installing the LV 8.2 runtime to work with NI-Spy in the VISA install.  In this case NI-Spy is really really old if it is still requiring the LV 8.2 runtime instead of 8.5 or 8.6 or 9.  SO it is at least 3 generations out of date.  I will go take a look at that post install script that is failing and see if I can find anything.

[sth]

In looking at the post install scripts it attempts to remove some older Internet plugins.  If those plugins are not available the "rm" command will fail and toss an error.  The "rm" should have been a "rm -f" to not return an error code on failure.

It looks like this is not a 10.6 snow leopard problem, but will fail for all installations of NIDAQmx Base that are installing on an Intel CPU.  My guess is that the LV 8.2 runtime does not install this Plugin for intel and thus the removal fails?

THere are two ways to try to work around it.  The first is to create a file.  Use the text editor or the command line to create the file

 "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/LV82NPlugin"

(Without the quotes of course).

Then run the installer.  If that doesn't work then you will have to go to more extensive surgery.  Copy the installer package off the disk image.  Then using the terminal change directory to "NI-DAQmx_Base_3.3.0.mpkg/.packages/nivisai.mpkg/.packages/nispyi.mpkg/.packages/LabVIEW82Runtime.pkg/Contents/Resources"

edit the two files postinstall and postupgrade

(using vi, emacs or whatever makes you happy) and change the line

   rm "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/LV82NPlugin"* 

to

   rm -f "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/LV82NPlugin"* 

You can even use text-edit and type Cmd-Shift-G to enter the path above to the files to edit.

I haven't tested this having a bit more fun with something else, but it should get things started.

Cheers!