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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Polar Align Assist never completes its run

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A few days ago, I was able to use the polar align assist successfully.

However, yesterday and the night before, it stopped working.

On Tuesday night, the entire KStars would abort twice after the 3rd image is captured but before the magenta line was shown. Once it aborted after the magenta line was shown.

Yesterday, Ekos would just say capturing the 3rd image, and then hangs there, doing nothing, with the other tabs active. This happened twice.

The regular solver works fine.

I have no idea how to proceed to troubleshoot this.

What logs should I enable to help with solving this?
6 years 8 months ago #17665

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Is the image getting downloaded? You can send Ekos logs (check my signature for how).
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6 years 8 months ago #17667

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Tonight, it aborted on the first image.

Using the daily builds.

Attached are the logs from KStars and INDI.
6 years 8 months ago #17725
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There is nothing in the KStars log, you have to enable logging in KStars options. Can it solve any images? If it cannot solve, it cannot proceed.
6 years 8 months ago #17732

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Here is what happened last night in more detail. Sorry for the brevity, because it was too late.

I click on Start, then Capture. The camera takes one image, successfully solves it, then searches for WCS, then says WCS is valid, then takes another image (not the 2nd image after rotation, another image after the WCS message). That image starts solving, then I am not sure if KStars aborts before or after the solving is complete. It never reaches the stage where it rotates the mount the first rotation.

I could not take a copy of the output at the bottom of the screen. Doing Select All an then Copy does not seem to copy the output into the buffer.

I turned WCS off, but still KStars aborts.

A few days ago, PAA was working, then for the last 3 sessions it aborts. The previous 2 sessions was after the 3rd image is taken (two rotations). Last night it died before the first rotation.
6 years 8 months ago #17742

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Here are two logs with the exact sequence of events until KStars aborts.

The mount has not been rotated for the 1st time yet.

Hope this helps.
6 years 8 months ago #17743
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Jasem,

Is it possible to simulate capture and plate solving? If so, then I can test this failure scenario indoors without having to wait for a clear night, and get you the logs you need. I could even run strace and get fairly accurate system calls around the point of failure.
6 years 8 months ago #17748

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Yes, I just tested it with Simulators and it works fine. I'm waiting for a clear night to test it out, it's too humid here today.
6 years 8 months ago #17749

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How do you get the CCD simulator to capture an image with stars in it, so that the solver would complete to a certain position in the sky?
6 years 8 months ago #17750

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sudo apt-get install gsc
6 years 8 months ago #17751

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I suspected that some left over stuff from when I was compiling INDI locally was the reason. So I wiped the laptop clean, installed Xubuntu 16.04.2 from scratch, then kstars-bleeding, indi-full, and the astrometery-data.

Today was a clear-ish night, so I tried Polar Align Assist again with the fresh install from the laptop. Still KStars crashes after taking the 3rd image.

The logs are attached for Kstars, and INDI (both Canon CCD and GotoNova). Didn't see anything obvious.

There is also other flakiness in the driver: when I asked the scope to go to M13 (straight up), it did so, then I did a capture and solve, with Slew to target, the scope got itself in a dangerous position. When I manually moved it to the home position using the hand controller arrow keys, the hand controller complained that I was below the horizon, while it was not.

So something else is wrong here.

Perhaps it is related to these parse errors:
SCOPE   827.011914 sec  : CMD <#:GD#>
SCOPE   827.032982 sec  : RES <+ 8* 4:40>
SCOPE   827.033020 sec  : Unable to parse response
SCOPE   828.034268 sec  : CMD <#:GR#>
SCOPE   828.056643 sec  : RES <12:11:20.6>
SCOPE   828.056697 sec  : VAL [12.1891]
SCOPE   828.056716 sec  : CMD <#:GD#>
SCOPE   828.077819 sec  : RES <+ 5*53: 8>
SCOPE   828.077843 sec  : Unable to parse response
SCOPE   829.079024 sec  : CMD <#:GR#>
SCOPE   829.101285 sec  : RES <12:11:20.6>
SCOPE   829.101342 sec  : VAL [12.1891]
SCOPE   829.101361 sec  : CMD <#:GD#>
SCOPE   829.122435 sec  : RES <+ 3*50:15>
SCOPE   829.122501 sec  : Unable to parse response
SCOPE   830.123658 sec  : CMD <#:GR#>
SCOPE   830.145820 sec  : RES <12:11:20.6>
SCOPE   830.145878 sec  : VAL [12.1891]
SCOPE   830.145901 sec  : CMD <#:GD#>
SCOPE   830.167081 sec  : RES <+ 1*38:41>
SCOPE   830.167111 sec  : Unable to parse response

Seems to be choking up on missing leading zeroes being replaced by spaces.

@Astrodan, did you get a chance to test with recent builds?
6 years 8 months ago #17779
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Ok, I added code to remove spaces before parsing number. Interesting that this was never an issue in the last 15 years! At any rate, next time you run KStars, please run it in GDB so that if it crashes, you get a backtrace and try to find out what exactly the problem is.
6 years 8 months ago #17784

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