×

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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Mac KStars 3.5.7 beta new build -- please test

  • Posts: 6
  • Thank you received: 0
Hi,

I tested last night beta3. With previous version (3.5.6) I had serial problems and KStars was very unstable and indidriver can crash anytime. I have MacBook Pro early 2011, Onstep 4.12 and ASI224MC.

This beta-version seems to be stable and scheduler ran whole night without problems. Only problem was connecting to indiserver. KStars crashed almost every time, when I tried to connect equipment. If I let indiserver running, connecting seems to work but starting indiserver seems crash Kstars.

Then there is something strange with Fitsviewer. I have disabled fitsviewer from settings because I don't want to see every single image using scheduler. In the version 3.5.6 I can still see the image using capture but that not happen with beta-version. I have to enable Fitsviewer to see preview image and the disable it before using scheduler.

Then there may be some issue with focus/polar alignment and with auto stretch. It seems that auto stretch is not enabled with those functions because my stars were dimmer than normally with same settings. But I'm not really sure about that.
2 years 2 months ago #79614

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 2876
  • Thank you received: 809
Hi JAMBBE,

Yes, with the first two betas that I posted there were packaging problems because of all the changes I had to make, my packaging script had some bugs.  The testers in this forum thread really helped me sort out the issues though with their testing, so I am most appreciative.  It should be good now, thanks for trying it out and reporting that it worked well.

There is a bug (I mentioned it earlier in the thread) that I see sometimes when starting an INDIServer where KStars sometimes but not always crashes and I don't know the cause.  This issue has existed for a few months and is not at all related to the INDI drivers issues that were reported with the betas above.  The INDIServer still starts successfully however, and if you restart kstars and reconnect to the INDIserver you already started everything works fine.  I wish I knew why this happens but I haven't figured it out yet.  It does seem that it might be dependent on Mac versions, since it happens on my Monterey Mac, but not on a Big Sur Mac that I tested it on the other day.  Now that a couple of more people can look into it with the work I did the last two weeks maybe we can investigate this further.

The other things you are mentioning with FITSViewer and and auto stretch are probably things that got changed in this version of KStars.  I am not familiar with any of the software changes this time around since I have been really focused on making all the changes so that we can get daily builds of KStars for Mac on the KDE Binary server.  They don't sound like Mac only issues, nor do they sound like anything I have been working on.  A good idea might be to post these questions/bugs in a new thread where more people might see it.  The only people who will look at this thread are those interested in the Mac beta build.

Please let me know if you notice any other issues and thank you for testing,

Rob
 
2 years 2 months ago #79629

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 300
  • Thank you received: 57
Rob wrote:

"There is a bug (I mentioned it earlier in the thread) that I see sometimes when starting an INDIServer where KStars sometimes but not always crashes and I don't know the cause.  This issue has existed for a few months and is not at all related to the INDI drivers issues that were reported with the betas above.  The INDIServer still starts successfully however, and if you restart kstars and reconnect to the INDIserver you already started everything works fine.  I wish I knew why this happens but I haven't figured it out yet. "

Pretty sure that's not just a Mac bug because that exact same behavior happens frequently to me on ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS running on a generic AMD mini-PC.
Last edit: 2 years 2 months ago by Scott Denning.
2 years 2 months ago #79636

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 2876
  • Thank you received: 809
Scott Denning, very interesting.  Is this on INDIServer startup or on shutdown?  I remember there was a cross platform KStars crash that happened sometimes on indiserver shutdown, but I thought this new crash on startup that I started seeing just a few months ago was Mac only.  The. shutdown bug was addressed I believe.

Thanks,

Rob
2 years 2 months ago #79637

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 992
  • Thank you received: 155
Rob I tested the latest build fir about two hours.  I didn't find any new bugs.  Good job!
But there are two minor issues I want to bring up:

1.  While I can change the scope and guidescope focal length in the mount control screen, they never save.  The save button seems to work, but when I start Kstars back up the original focal length settings come back.

2.  In the Mosaic feature, I like new feature where I can move the mosaic around to compose it, I don't see any way to zoom the screen in or out.  I was looking at my 2x2 composition and it filled the screen - but I really wanted to see more of the sky so I can judge exactly how I wanted to position the mosaic.  A zoom in/out function like you have in the planetarium would be really helpful.  I thought spinning the mouse scroll wheel would do it, but no.

 
2 years 2 months ago #79638

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 2876
  • Thank you received: 809
Hi Peter,

I'm glad to hear it all worked out!  As for your two minor issues, I am not sure I can help with those right now.  I am surprised that the scope focal length and guide scope focal length do not save.  Did KStars crash before you restarted it?  Sometimes I note that if there is a crash and it doesn't get shut down properly, some preferences don't save.  But if that isn't the problem, I am not sure I know.  You might try posting in a new forum post.

For the second item, that is a new feature that I don't have any experience with.  I have had my head very deep in the building and packaging scripts and code and I haven't even gotten to play with any new features recently, (plus it is full moon).  You might want to ask Jasem or post in the general forum, since I think he is the one who might have worked on that.

Thanks,

Rob
2 years 2 months ago #79641

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 300
  • Thank you received: 57
Rob, yes on INDI startup. It's intermittent, but maybe 2 or 3 times a week I click connect and blammo! KStars is gone. Then I restart KStars and click connect and I get the message that there's already an INDI server running and then I can connect to that and everything's fine.

I figured it was just something flaky with my setup until I read the description of this exact problem in this thread.

Guess I should run in gdb and see if I can document it better.
2 years 2 months ago #79643

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 209
  • Thank you received: 33
Hi everybody,
I have experienced also intempestive crashes of KStars since a few months and I reported it.
The crashes occurred especially while running the simulators.
I think I finally found the culprit : kstarsrc
This file kstarsrc is located (on a Mac) at Library / Preferences / kstarsrc. It contains all the user preferences.
I deleted this file and I've got no crash since in the simulators profile or the real profiles.
I recommend not to delete immediately this file but saving it by changing its name.
When you will start KStars again, the Startup Wizard will open and will recreate a new kstarsrc file.
2 years 2 months ago #79644

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 209
  • Thank you received: 33
I am using the indi_sqm_weather driver to connect my Unihedron SQM through ethernet.
With KStars 357-3 the correct server address cannot be saved, while it is saved with older KStars versions.
2 years 2 months ago #79646

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 2876
  • Thank you received: 809
So as in all the drivers, there is the "Options" tab where you can save, and load configurations in the INDI driver.  Is that what you are using to do the saving and loading?  I just tried it myself, though I don't have a weather device.  I was able to set the port, save the configuration, close the driver, then load it again. Now most drivers I have been familiar with in the past have automatically loaded the configuration. Is this one any different?
2 years 2 months ago #79658

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 2876
  • Thank you received: 809
Hmm, Jean-Claude, you might be on to something.  I just tried your experiment, renaming my kstarsrc file and then tried starting an indiserver in KStars.  It crashed with the old one very easily, it didn't crash with the new one when I tried it a couple of times.  I'm not sure this was a well conducted experiment since I really need to do it many times in a more controlled way, but it's enough that I think you might have something here.  We should see if there is some setting that got saved in there that somehow affected it.  It's easy to check, it is literally a text file full of settings.
2 years 2 months ago #79661

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 2876
  • Thank you received: 809
I just did a diff between the old and the new kstarsrc and looked through the differences in settings.  Many of them would almost certainly not cause any crashes, such as the window size being different.  But one thing that stood out is that I had logging turned on in my kstarsrc that was causing a crash.  Specifically I had turned on Verbose logging with CCD checked.  I did some tests and that seems to cause a crash about 50% of the time, but without it being checked, it doesn't cause a crash, at least that I see with a couple of quick tests.  Can you check to see if you have that setting enabled when using the settings file that caused the crash?  Or maybe just try opening KStars, turning on CCD logging and see if that reliably crashes it for you?  If so, we may have found a major clue as to what causes my mysterious crash that was seemingly affecting just me.
2 years 2 months ago #79662

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Time to create page: 0.581 seconds