Error: NI-Industrial Communications for EtherCAT Module Cannot Be Found When Switching the Scan Engine to Active

Updated Sep 18, 2026

Reported In

Hardware

  • NI-9144

Software

  • LabVIEW Real-Time Module

Driver

  • NI-Industrial Communications for EtherCAT

Issue Details

I am using a CompactRIO controller with an NI-9145 EtherCAT Expansion Chassis and a custom FPGA personality.
When I switch the Scan Engine from Configuration mode to Active mode, the NI-9145/NI-9144 fails to enter the Operational State and I receive the following error:
 
NI-Industrial Communications for EtherCAT: The module cannot be found. If the physical module exists and the device is in FPGA mode, recompile and download the module file to fix this problem.
 
The FPGA compilation completes successfully, but the EtherCAT chassis does not transition to the Operational State.

Solution

This error can occur if the FPGA image deployed to the NI-9145/NI-9144 does not match the EtherCAT configuration or if the EtherCAT software installation has become corrupted.
 
  1. Switch the Scan Engine to Configuration mode.
  2. Rebuild the FPGA Build Specification.
  3. Download the FPGA bitfile to the NI-9145.
  4. Select Deploy All from the CompactRIO target.
  5. Switch the Scan Engine to Active mode and verify whether the chassis reaches Operational State.
  6. If the issue persists, create a new LabVIEW project and manually recreate the EtherCAT configuration.
  7. If the issue still persists, format the CompactRIO controller and reinstall the target software, including NI-Industrial Communications for EtherCAT.
If the issue is caused by corrupted EtherCAT software or target configuration, reinstalling the software may resolve the error.

Related Links

Deployment and Scan Mode Errors Using EtherCAT on Default Ethernet Port

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