Hi,
I'm just reposting this here as it doesn't seem to be getting any attention on the kde bugzilla - I'm not sure if that's still being monitored.
This is a kstars / ekos issue, as on my laptop I reverted to kstars 3.5.7 while keeping indi-toupbase 2.0+t202304160731 and it happily takes multiple exposures without stopping and restarting the fan & cooler. It's pretty bad, especially when taking flats or bias, as it's impossible to maintain a stable temperature. Also I worry the extra thermal and electrical cycling could have an impact on the camera's life.

SUMMARY
Touptek camera driver (possibly others, but the Touptek is the only one I can check) gets reset after every exposure. This is making it impossible to capture a sequence of bias frames as after every frame during the reset the fan and cooler switch off and the temperature rises before they switch back on again. I don't want to incur any risk from unnecessary thermal cycling from taking hundreds of bias frames, and in any case it would drag out the process excessively if I were to wait for the temperature to stabilise again after each one.

If I use the INDI control panel and trigger an exposure manually, the camera does not reset, so I suspect the issue is within ekos. (Note: later confirmed by reverting kstars to an older version.)

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Set a job of multiple exposures using the Toupcam driver.
2. Start the job.


OBSERVED RESULT
The camera fan and cooler stop and restart before each exposure.

EXPECTED RESULT
The camera should remain in a state of constant cooling throughout, with no resets occurring.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Windows: N/A
macOS: N/A
Linux/KDE Plasma:
(available in About System)
KDE Plasma Version: 5.24.7
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.92.0
Qt Version: 5.15.3

Turns out it was due to changing capture format in the driver. I patched the driver so that it doesn't necessary change any settings if the format is the same. This fixes the issue for now but the root cause needs to be examined by Touptek as changing format shouldn't cause the FAN to stop.

PS. KDE Bugzilla is monitored, this is not a KStars bug, it's an INDI driver issue.

Ah, thanks Jasem, I've pulled the change in from git so I'll test it next chance I get. I'll close the kstars issue as it's been dealt with here.