Hey fellow Mac users,

I just finished compiling the 3.5.6 Mac beta of KStars.  It has taken me a couple of days because I had a few issues since I had a new version of the Mac SDK with an Xcode update I had done, and then I had to switch to Monterey, and then I found a couple of other issues.  So it has been a couple of days in the making. I ultimately had to rebuild the whole thing, which takes a few hours.  Please test thoroughly.  I think it should all be working.  It passed all my usual tests that I do to make sure key things are installed right.  But of course it hasn't been tested much since I just now finished the build, so please try it out so that we can make a new release.  Unfortunately it says 3.5.7 beta in the "about" window, but I don't know if I can do anything about that.  Other than that, I am not sure of any issues we should look out for, just try what you usually would try or use and let me know if there are any Mac specific issues.

www.indilib.org/jdownloads/kstars/beta/kstars-3.5.6-beta.dmg

Thanks,

Rob

The four-click crash that I reported here is still present in your beta.

John
 

Hi there, so those apple crash reports are often not very helpful at all. The screen recording, however, is very helpful. Also, did you generate any log Files in KStars so that we can see what all happened leading up to the crash? That is pretty important too. From the screen recording, I think I was able to ascertain that you are connecting to a remote INDI server, that you have several devices, and that it crashed when you clicked on the Astrometry tab. I noticed that you have connected a Meade telescope, a Focuser, a Watchdog, and the Astrometry driver. Is that correct? One glaring issue that I can see, is that you don't have an imager in that list. Astrometry needs an imager and a telescope in order to do anything. Also Ekos requires an imager to even start up locally. That is vital and may be the cause of your crash. A second question (but probably unrelated) that I have is why do you have the Astrometry driver running on the remote device? If you are using Ekos on your laptop, then all the work I did with StellarSolver in 2020 will give you an extremely fast built in solver. You shouldn't need the separate astrometry driver on the remote device.

Thank you for your reply.

The astrometry driver is a legacy of my original setup. I didi not think to remove it but will do so.

The camera is not showing up because it is unplugged when my scope is in the garage. Of course a camera is necessary to solve, but KStars shouldn't crash if one isn't available.

I do not have log files to offer, but if you are unable to reproduce the crash just let me know what you need and I'll get them for you.

I removed the astrometry driver from my equipment profile. Curiously, it was still showing up when I started Ekos. I had to reboot the Stellarmate to have this change take effect.

After the remote astrometry driver was removed, Ekos no longer offers the astrometry tab unless the camera is present. When the camera is present, the four-click sequence does not crash.

Nonetheless, it would be good if KStars did not crash in the situation of my original configuration.


 

Yes, I certainly agree with you. This should be corrected. The astrometry tab should not be coming up if there is no camera. Even if the astrometry driver is present it should not come up. That definitely sounds like it isn't a Mac specific issue, it would need to be a change to the code. Right now I'm focused on whether or not this build of a DMG is good, but we definitely should address your item for the next release.

Hi, I've tried to create a separate topic for this issue, but for some reason it does not appear in the list of new topics.I'm having trouble connecting my onstep mount to Ekos via wifi. Sometimes the Kstars crashes immediately after connection, other times it just can't connect. I only have 2 devices -- a qhy guide connected via usb and the mount via wifi. Screen recording for the case when Kstars  crashed is attached. Also a log is attached of several failed attempts to connect. 
  

Does the same thing happen if you try to connect to the camera first, or just when you try to connect to the mount first?

I'll load it up tomorrow and check it out.
Did you manage to fix the issue with the iOptron CEM120 mount defaulting to the wrong baud rate, with no ability to save the correct rate?

 

Hi Peter,

I don't personally know anything about that. Setting the wrong baud rate with no ability to se a new one is very much a driver issue I think. I was fighting with the build script and the recipes for the last few days trying to fix a bunch of build issues to get it to build the new version. I haven't had a chance to look into any specific issues.

I think I do remember you had sent a message to me the other day about it, but as I said, I have my full time job and was very busy and in the evenings I was trying to get the new version of KStars and INDI to build.  I fixed those issues and now it built successfully, but I haven't had any time to look into any specific issues with drivers or anything yet.

Ok, thanks Rob. Jasem has described the issue and fixed it in the latest Kstars/INDI on the Linux platform.
I can set the correct baud rate, but it was just that the save configuration wouldn't save it, so I have to manually set it every time I launch INDI.
This was why I was trying to build the OSX version myself, as Jasem suggested that it was already fixed but not compiled.  But I kept getting those missing files error.