How Can I Verify If A Proxy Is Configured On My Windows PC to Troubleshoot NI Software Connection Issues?

Updated Oct 18, 2022

NI hardware and software that uses network connectivity may have issues where the PC is configured to use a network proxy. Some proxy configurations will not affect communications but there are many situations where a proxy will cause issues such as locally connected devices or other special network configurations.

A common symptom of a proxy configured for the system is that a device will initially appear in NI MAX, then cause NI MAX to hang or the device to appear disconnected, after selecting the device to view more information. Additionally, the Device Discovery Troubleshooting tool in NI MAX is unable to report any problems, but may hang or crash when trying to connect to a device.

From a command prompt you can use the following commands to see if there are proxy configurations that may interfere with communication between NI software components and hardware. 
  1. echo %http_proxy%
    If any value is displayed besides "%http_proxy%" than an environment variable is set that will interfere with NI software's usage of the Curl library for its HTTP based communications.
  2. netsh winhttp show proxy
    If the netsh command displays a proxy configuration then NI software may experience issues.
You can also check for the http_proxy environment variable from the Windows system properties:
  1. Open the start menu and type "environment" to find the system environment variables control panel: 
    start-envvars.png
  2. Click on the Environment Variables button at the bottom of the dialog: 
    sysprops.png
  3. If an http_proxy variable is listed in User variables or System variables then a proxy is configured that will interfere with NI software: 
    proxyvar.png

If a proxy is configured and you are having difficulty with communication between NI software components or with NI hardware then you should reach out to your company's IT team to determine the best path forward that can eliminate the need for an environment proxy. NI hardware and software uses the Curl library for its HTTP based communication which proxy configuration interferes with.

Related Links

Additional device connection troubleshooting steps: https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z000000P70YSAS&l=en-US

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