Solution
This error appears when the Salt-Minion service is not responding correctly, this can happen due to the lack of a required registry key or an issue with the service itself. To start troubleshooting, verify the following:
1. Open the Windows Services by pressing <Windows+R>, typing services.msc and clicking OK.
2. Locate the services with "NI" names and confirm if the NI Salt-Minion is listed. A healthy service is shown in the following image:
3. If the NI Salt-Minion service is listed, tried restarting the service by right-clicking it and selecting Restart.
- If it fails, note any error that is shown, the Windows Event logs might also log more information if an error occurs when trying to restart the service. To access the Windows logs you can press <Windows+R>, type eventvwr and click OK, then go to Windows Logs.
4. If the restart does not fix the issue or the service is not listed, open the Windows Registry Editor by pressing <Windows+R>, typing regedit and clicking OK.
5. Browse to the Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\ location within the registry and confirm if the nisaltminion key exists. A healthy key is shown in the following image :
6. If the key is missing any sub-key or parameter, you will need to
repair or reinstall the SystemLink Client software installation for the keys to be regenerated. Attempting the repair or reinstall is recommended as well if the keys are correctly registered and the error continues, since this can also regenerate missing files within the
C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\salt-minion folder that might be causing the issue. If there is an error during the repair or reinstall process make sure to:
- Use an administrator user to avoid permissions issues.
- Verify if the antivirus or firewall software is blocking one of the components of the SystemLink Client application, such as the nssm.exe that gets installed in the C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\salt-minion folder. If it is, the recommendation is to specifically whitelist the file provided as part of SystemLink in the previously mentioned directory.
- You can also generate logs for NI Package Manager for further review.
7. Once the keys are correctly registered the NI Salt-Minion service will be listed under the Windows Services again, and the error will be cleared.