Logging VISA Calls using NI IO Trace

NI IO Trace is useful for logging instrument's VISA Write/Read operations, which would be very helpful for debugging. 

Step 1: Opening NI IO Trace

NI IO Trace gets installed with a variety of NI Products and there is a good chance that its already installed in your system. In Windows search, type "NI IO Trace" and see if it comes up.

Launching this would open the NI IO Trace tool as below.

In case if NI IO Trace doesn't come up, you can install one of the components mentioned in the NI Article to install NI IO Trace - Where Can I Download NI I/O Trace?

Step 2:  Configuring the NI IO Trace Capture Options

Go to Tools -> Options -> Logging. Enable log to file with log file type as Trace File. Enable split contents across multiple files. In Error Action tab, ensure that Continue Capturing and Ignore Error is selected.

Option 1: If you don't like to lose any logged data, uncheck Delete Files.

 

Option 2: If you would like to have last N transactions, you can check Delete files and specify the required file size. 

Step 3: Starting the Capture

Click on the green arrow in the NI IO Trace to start capturing. 

Step 4: Execute the Instrument Operations

Run the required operations that you would like to log for analysis. You would see items getting logged in NI IO Trace.

Step 5: Stop the Capture

Once the required instrument operations are logged, you can stop the capture by clicking on the Stop button, which is next to the Start button.

The file(s) would be available in the specified log directory.

All done!