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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Esatto not connecting on Mac, wrong driver loaded?

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So, if I remember and understand this correctly, the issue here is that the USB - Serial adapters for several devices require a driver. Those drivers used to use kernel extensions in the old MacOS versions. But now kexts have been discontinued by MacOS. Now MacOS requires something new called "driver extensions" which are more like a program running instead of a part of the system. I assume the problem is that some older adapters may not have driver extension application programs that support this new standard, at least not at this time since it is a newer standard. Is this correct?

Sorry I got distracted from this since I was working on a bunch of other things, such as getting automated builds on craft, but we should probably come back to this and make it more of a priority. First, people won't be able to use devices unless they download the right driver program and install it and we really should have documentation somewhere about this. Also, we should know if there are any that do not currently work because they don't have such a program. And we should try to learn any workarounds or complications to tell users about them. This probably is one of the biggest issues for Mac users right now since we solved some of the other issues earlier.
1 year 6 months ago #86026

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Thanks Rob. Yes, that is exactly the issue.
Not sure though if its older adapters and/or extension application programs that don't support the new standard. As far as I understand the Silabs CP210x bridges are still very common serial/USB adapters. And they have released specific driver extension application programs for the Mac of less than a year old. But somehow it goes wrong between the INDI driver and the extension program.
It would indeed be great if we could somehow find a solution. For now I've gone back to my Ubuntu machine, but would like to keep using the Mac.

One thought came up and that is that the error message is about not able to acquire a Serial Number from the focuser. Would it make sense If we try to delete that request the driver makes and see what happens? If it is really the connection, we may just get a similar error but then with the next request from the driver. However, if it has something to do with the focuser not presenting its serial number through this new interface correctly, it may work. Having the serial number is not crucial.

Yes, you are right, where there are issues like this, it would be good to include some documentation on that. At the time I had written a few lines that we might be able to use:

For the Sesto Senso 2 and Esatto focusers this could look like:
For this INDI driver to work properly on a Mac, a separate USB-Serial driver needs to be installed. The legacy Silabs driver version 4.* can be found here . Installation requires macOS 10.14 (Catalina) or lower. So far, it has not been possible to establish a proper connection using either driver version 6.* or macOS 11 (Big Sur) and higher.

For the Microtouch focuser (based on another thread on this topic), it could look like:
For this INDI driver to work properly on a Mac, a separate USB-Serial driver needs to be installed. The latest Silabs driver can be found here . This driver has shown to work on macOS 12 (Monterey) and is likely to work on 10.14 (Catalina) and 11 (Big Sur). For older macOS version, the legacy Silabs driver may be required, which can be found here .

Even so, it would be good to know from people who have no problems with focusers and their Macs, for which it could look like:
For this INDI driver to work properly on a Mac, no separate USB-Serial drivers need to be installed. The required drivers are embedded in the macOS. This has been tested on macOS versions .....


Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help here. I understand this is a difficult issue and I'm unfortunately not a software engineer. But I can test things out.

Best regards, Willem Jan.
1 year 6 months ago #86030

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Yes this is a very good start. You may not be a software engineer but you definitely know more about this issue right now than I do. I like the stuff that you wrote so far. Also, I am not a software engineer, but I do know a decent amount about programming and I'm not too bad at it. It is a hobby so I don't have unlimited time to devote to it, but I think if we focus more on this problem in the next couple of weeks, we can certainly sort some things out and improve the situation. I just finished fixing several serious macOs bugs, so I think we can focus more on this one now. I think for me, the first thing I could do is run some tests on my own Mac using kstars and indi and see which devices that I own use these sorts of drivers and whether they are still working. I usually use a raspberry pi and remotely control it on my Mac using kstars, so I haven't tried this in awhile. A few years ago when I was porting KStars to Mac and working out various issues with INDI etc, I did run a bunch of tests with various devices I own and I know I installed a driver or two to make them work. I seem to remember that was the case at least with my Moonlite Focuser and two serial to USB adapters for my two mounts. I can try those again to see if they still work and test any other things too.
The following user(s) said Thank You: W J Drijfhout
1 year 6 months ago #86033

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That sounds great Rob, and please let me know if there is anything I can do on this side to experiment with.
1 year 6 months ago #86034

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Oh man, this is me exactly. I am trying to run EKOS on MacBook Pro with M1 Max chip, running the Esatto autofocuser. I am a software developer but my C/C++ experience is way stale and not really a device guy. I did figure out that I needed to install the driver from Silicon Labs and now see EKOS connect to the autofocuser at some level but see the missing serial number error. I totally agree that I want to see what happens if EKOS doesn't ask for SN. I suspect that we will just get an error for the next requested param.

What IDE do you Kstars/EKOS devs use? I saw some mention of a QT dev environment. I could potentially help with this (I'm recently retired) but brand new to this domain and I've never had to debug a USB device before so I'd have to claw up the learning curve.

Dave.
1 year 5 months ago #86811

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Hello David, for INDI, check out INDI Gitub for more details: github.com/indilib/indi

Make sure you're on KStars 3.6.1 as Essato was fixed in the latest INDI. If it still does not work, try changing the baud rate. The driver is confirm to work with the actual device and was fully tested.
1 year 5 months ago #86838

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"The driver is confirm to work with the actual device and was fully tested."

On Mac?
Last edit: 1 year 5 months ago by W J Drijfhout.
1 year 5 months ago #86843

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Just tested 3.6.1, but still the same problem on Mac.
The problem is that from MacOS 10.15 and onwards, there is an issue in the communication with the serial-usb interface of the Esatto/Sesto Senso2. We used to be able to bypass this by installing an older MacOS, which worked fine. But since KStars 3.6, MacOS10.15+ is required (for good reasons, I'm sure).
Rob is aware of this problem and is looking for a solution.
1 year 5 months ago #86862

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Hi Rob, just wondering if you had been able to find some time to look into this issue?
1 year 3 months ago #88713

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Hi Folks,

I recently purchased an ESATTO and appear to be having the same or a similar problem. I'm running Stars 3.6.4 and get the following message when trying to connect to the focuser ...

2023-05-27T16:07:19: [INFO] Error retrieving data from device, please ensure focuser is powered and the port is correct.
2023-05-27T16:07:19: [ERROR] Serial write error: Timeout error
2023-05-27T16:07:14: [INFO] Trying connecting to /dev/cu.usbserial-210 @ 115200 ...

Any progress on getting this focuser to work on a Mac under Kstars/Ekos/Indi? Has anyone tried using a network connection via the ESATTO WiFi?

Thanks,
-Bret
10 months 1 day ago #93098

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I haven’t tried this in a while anymore, and kind of gave up. I’ve replaced the focuser on my Mac system with a non-Primaluce lab focuser and use the Esatto and SS2 now on Linux only. Perhaps in the meantime there have been updates in the firmware that might help?
The WiFi capability of these focusers is a kind of hotspot functionality. Even if it connects, it would not work for my setup, as the WiFi signal would be much too weak to run my in-house computers on.
Would really be great to have a solution for this, as it will essentially lock out more and more Mac users with Primalucelab focusers and Kstars.
10 months 1 day ago #93099

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