Re:Unexpected shut down of KStars and Ekos, but not Indi server
using NanoPC-T4 with Armbian Ubuntu Bionic
Kstars-Ekos-INDIE
NanoPC-T4 - Armbian Ubuntu 18.04
iOptron CEM25P mount
Photoline 80mm triplet
ZWO ASI294MC Pro Imaging camera
ZWO ASI290MM mini Guide camera
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Ihoujin wrote: Clicking the zoom to fit button in the align module has often resulted in kstars crashing for me. It seems to happen mainly with large dslr frames, and if I click the button while the image is being solved.
Edit: Pi4, 4gb in Raspbian Buster
Same here, I usually crash when I click on the zoom buttons in the PA routine. INDI is still running but Kstars just shutdown and I have to launch it and then launch Ekos.
I am running StellarMate OS v1.4.4 for Raspberry Pi3B+ and DSLR
SW Black Diamond 80ED | SW150MAK | Newton SW 200/1000 | Orion 50mm Guider with Helical Focuser |Sirius EQ-G Rowan Belt Mode
Canon 1000D moded | ZWO ASI185MC | Baader Mark III Zoom
INDI | Stellarmate on RPI3B+ | Stellarium | Pixinsight
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TV Paracorr-2, 2" Starlight FT, HSM20, Pegasus UPBv2,
ASI1600MM Pro, ASI174MM Mini, ZWO LRGB, EFW, & OAG, StellarMate on my RPi3
KStars Build 2019-09-30T08:25:45Z on Win10 (don't click while loading anything!)
Indi ver....
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And the problem appears to happen more frequently when it's connected to the mount.
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While guiding and imaging, suddenly Kstars disappears but PHD2 continues guiding and Indi seems to remain connected.
After i restart Kstars and connect, a pop up window tells me that there is already an instance of Indi running. I chose to stop it and then Kstars can start workng again.
Greetings.
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May be it running out of memory. I added 4 GB swap and that seems to have helped.
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NOTE: I wouldn't recommend a SWAP file on a raspberry pi due to issues with reading and writing of the SD card. You will wear it out. There is something much better called zram. Basically it takes the system ram, makes a compressed swap file for it, and puts the swap file in RAM instead of on the system disk. There is a slight performance hit since the system now has to do access compressed ram on a swap file in memory instead of just accessing memory. But the performance hit is worth the system not crashing. And it is also better than wearing out your SD card.
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I can't "reliably" induce a crash of KStars, it seems to happen randomly to me, at least. The Zotac mini-PC I am using also has just 4 GB of RAM, but my Swap file there resides on the eMMC, not an SD card.
With respect to wearing out the SD card, I am less concerned about that. First, I had a swap file on my Pi3 and that was used extensively over the last year without any problem. The Swap file on the Pi4 so far appears to be used very sparingly (swappiness set at 20) and I put it only as a safeguard in case memory gets tight. Second, I don't know how to turn on zRAM in Ubuntu MATE on the Pi4. What is the procedure to do that? Third, microSD cards are really cheap now (I am using a 128 GB card from Samsung that costs $20 and it already last for over a year).
I actually ran my Pi4 without a hitch through the night 2 nights ago, but I did not use guiding. I have the suspicion that handing two cameras and other intensive tasks might be the problem. One of the crashes I had earlier occurred right during the meridian flip.
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sudo apt -y install zram-config
It takes care of everything. If you currently have 4 GB of ram, this will give you close to 8 GB
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Polar alignment ran perfectly and smooth (also in full screen).
Guiding ran so I started a small imaging session of 1x60s, 1x120, 1x180, 1x240 and 1x300s subs. During the 180 sub, I wanted to check the Stars on the 120 s and my messing about with the fits viewer, while guiding and taking a 180s sub, caused KStars to crash.
After restarting and reconnecting etc I tried the same imaging session again, this time leasing the poor fits viewer alone. This time no crash.
I then slewed to a New target, solved and synced and started a one hour session of 30s subs - no problems. Darks, Bias and flats afterwards without problems.
So I’ll just try not to push my 2GB RP4 too hard

Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro with Rowan Belt Mod with EQDIR cable
ZWO ASI294MC Pro imaging camera
QHY5L-II-C guide camera on 50mm guidescope
DeepSkyDad AF3 autofocuser
Controlled from Kstars/Ekos on Mac
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I can sometimes trigger that by using the fitsviewer, and sometimes its just out of nothing...
But when a session is running, and i do not do too much clicking around its stable.
cheers
Niki
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the.cakemaker wrote: Just wanted to inform that i have crashes here too. Running KStars on my ASUS VIVOBOOK with KDE Neon and Plasma.
I can sometimes trigger that by using the fitsviewer, and sometimes its just out of nothing...
But when a session is running, and i do not do too much clicking around its stable.
cheers
Niki
Same here. I don't remember crashing in another module, but most of the time if I play with the fits viewer, trying to zoom or touching the "default zoom" or anything related I crash 8 times out of 10. Very frustrating, so I try to do without using the zoom feature at all.
SW Black Diamond 80ED | SW150MAK | Newton SW 200/1000 | Orion 50mm Guider with Helical Focuser |Sirius EQ-G Rowan Belt Mode
Canon 1000D moded | ZWO ASI185MC | Baader Mark III Zoom
INDI | Stellarmate on RPI3B+ | Stellarium | Pixinsight
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