How Long Can an NI-SCOPE Device Wait for a Trigger in LabVIEW?

Updated Feb 24, 2023

Reported In

Hardware

  • PXI Oscilloscope
  • Oscilloscope Device

Issue Details

  • I have some LabVIEW code that fetches data from a PXI or PCI oscilloscope card. The code may run for months at a time before a trigger is received. Will this cause problems?
  • If my scope card waits for long periods of time between receiving start triggers, do I have to re-arm the trigger every once in a while?

Solution

The scope card can wait indefinitely to receive a trigger. It is not necessary to re-arm the trigger, even if the LabVIEW code runs for months at a time.

It is important to note that some LabVIEW driver API will consist of timeout inputs on the "Configure", "Fetch" or "Read" VIs. These timeouts should be set to infinite (-1) to prevent the hardware from timing out before receiving a trigger. For the NI-SCOPE API, the Fetch VI must be set to an infinite timeout.

Additional Information

When running code for prolonged periods of time (i.e. months), no code is guaranteed to run flawlessly. This is because the operating system may crash, software updates might be pushed, or the system could run out of memory.

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