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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Touptek driver issue - download times out

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Hi Ron,

Just for the sake of narrowing down the possible problem sources - are you able to test the cam with the native touptek windows software/drivers (or N.I.N.A.)?
1 year 5 months ago #87197

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It's likely to come to that. When I bought the Beelink I cloned the Windows11 installation to another SSD before I installed Ubuntu (not sure I did it completely - I think I still need to make it bootable). I am seriously considering swapping that SSD in and setting up to give NINA a try.

I suppose it would be wise to try just from my Windows laptop the next time I have the camera inside, before I go to all the trouble of setting up the Beelink for Windows imaging. I'd miss you guys :) A reliable IND driver would be the best solution.
1 year 5 months ago #87372

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Well, as said, it's to identify the cause - if you have the same problem with windows drivers, then NINA won't help neither. But it's always good to explore - Good luck!
1 year 5 months ago #87378

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I can say this is most likely a platform/architecture issue. A fair comparison would be to test PHD2 on Linux on the same platform with their native Touptek drivers against KStars on the same machine with INDI drivers. If PHD2 native drivers does not suffer from timeout issues, then it is indeed an INDI driver issue fair and square.
1 year 5 months ago #87379

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Thanks. I will install the Touptek capture application on a Windows laptop, plug in the Risingcam ATR3CMOS26000KPA and let it run a while.

I wish I had kept better notes about each time the driver crashed or timed out, because it did work much, much more reliably in the past than it does now.
1 year 5 months ago #87404

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The camera has been capturing frames in the Touptek Windows app for a few hours without a hiccup. Not a totally definitive test, because it will sometimes go 6 or 7 hours in INDI before the driver times out. But it's enough that I will try to spend some time during an upcoming cloudy stretch getting Windows properly installed on the miniPC and starting to figure out NINA.
1 year 5 months ago #87436

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One more small data point. After the successful tests in windows, I tried a similar configuration in KStars with only the camera connected, no extra hubs, etc.

The INDI driver obliged by crashing immediately, before even trying a test capture. Restarting INDI resulted in the camera driver reporting a failure to read the sensor temp. After a power cycle of the whole system it has behaved itself so far, though I assume it would still be subject to crashing at 3am, as is its habit.

I did learn one thing about my system. I have been in the habit of saving images to a usb flash drive, both for the convenience of bringing them inside in the morning and because that was a much faster storage medium back when I was using a pi + SD card. I have always had an issue where download times would go from 0.16 up to 6 or more seconds after capturing 20 or 30 short exposures (flats, for example), that I had blamed on the camera. As part of the minimal system I was saving to the internal SSD in the mini-PC, and that phenomenon was not there. A full 100-image sequence of 0.5s frames saved, with all having the normal 0.16s download time. Went back to saving to the flash drive, back to long downloads after 20-30 frames. Immediately restarted the sequence but saving to the internal SSD again and all 100 frames downloaded quickly. So that issue is not due to the camera or driver.
1 year 5 months ago #87448

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After some 5 weeks of testing and just living with the periodic timeout errors, I *think* I have solved it. Always tricky to declare an intermittent problem solved when it often does not occur until 6+ hours into an imaging session, but I am cautiously optimistic.

The problem? This 12v splitter:


It came with the ZWO add-on dew heater that I bought because the internal window heater in the RisingCam was not sufficient on particularly humid nights. I have run at least 20 hours of testing with a different 12v splitter with no crashes or timeouts.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Jasem Mutlaq
1 year 4 months ago #87838
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Thank you for the update, Ron! Is this with 2 camera or just one primary camera?
1 year 4 months ago #87852

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Just the main camera. The ZWO dew heater sticky-tapes onto the front of the camera body and they supplied the splitter to power the heater off of the same 12v used by the camera.

I wish I had a good physical explanation (intermittent open? cheapo thin-gauge internal wire causing a voltage drop?). I won't be 100% convinced for a while yet. With the sometimes 6-hour wait before a failure, even 20 hours of good behavior could just be luck.

Once I am satisfied I will try to remember to edit my first post, so no one else with a toupcam driver issue has to read two pages to learn that my problem wasn't actually with the driver.
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Last edit: 1 year 4 months ago by Ron DeBry.
1 year 4 months ago #87879

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Sigh. Guess it was too good to be true.



Back to the plan of installing Windows on the mini-pc. I have no ideas as to why I was able get through nearly 30 hours of testing indoors without a failure.
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1 year 4 months ago #87896
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