LabVIEW VIs Unable to Locate Channelinstances in <extravilib> and Refuse to Load.

Updated Dec 2, 2023

Reported In

Software

  • LabVIEW

Issue Details

When trying to load LabVIEW VIs or Examples, I see something similar to the following error:
image001 (2).png
Loading: <extravilib>:\ChannelInstances\<VI> and LabVIEW is unable to load the examples without being broken. How do I fix this?

Solution

The <extravilib> directory is a symbolic path that contains the channel wire functions. On Windows, this defaults as C:\Users\<user\Documents\LabVIEW Data\<Version><Bitness>\ExtraVILib,
e.g. C:\Users\admin\Documents\LabVIEW Data\2020(32-bit)\ExtraVILib.

If this directory cannot be found, loaded or written to by LabVIEW, this directory will not be loaded and the above message will appear. This could be due to file permissions or unknown characters in the file path. Confirm that you are able to access the directory or change the directory to something accessible.

To change this directory, go to LabVIEW -> Tools -> Options -> Paths -> Default Data Directory -> untick "Use Default" and browse to a valid path. Press "Replace" and reload your LabVIEW. Reload the VI you were trying to use.

You should see the channel VI functions regenerate. If you still encounter issues, please contact NI support for further assistance.