I have an issue with the reliability of ethernet on the Pi3 version of Stellarmate.

I create a new network connection either using a static hard coded IP address OR setting the interface to "share" (aka be a DHCP server). Neither of these are working correctly.

This initially works, but at intermittent but regular intervals it simply stops working for some reason. To re-enable I just click on the network name in the network icon dropdown in the top bar and it immediately restarts.

This has made it unusable.

I need to use ethernet ideally, because it drastically increases the download time of images from 15-20secs down to 4-5seconds. This is critical because I am often using hyperstar and length of images are regularly between 30-90seconds. Long download times means I lose stupid amounts of time each hour simply downloading images.

In the three screen shots
- One shows the before an after of the ifconfig command - in one you can see the interface is there with an IP address; then in the next execution you still see the interface, but stellarmate is executing something to disable this interface
- Next screen shot is from a "tail -f /var/log/messages" running to show how its running something to mess with the ethernet interface
- the third is a simple ping command running from my Mac and its shows how unreliable this connection is

This is new to me. I did not witness this behaviour on v1.4x firmware.

How can I "lock" an ethernet interface so that it stays active. This should be super easy, especially for something like Linux, but this is clearly not the case with this new firmware.

you can stop and disable stellarmate network manager so that it doesn't interfer.

Thanks Jasem, I'll try that and report back. I've got forecast clouds for the next week though, but I might drag it out and test this regardless.

Is there a way that you would recommend to have the Stellarmate network manager handle this though? Like you can configure/manage the wifi from the Stellarmate web interface, can we do the same with the ethernet interface?

Last night I had a successful session with 1.5.0 (RPI4). Not a single problem.
Everything was running on RPI. VNC from Windows PC (wired) and Android tablet (wireless).
Polar Align. 3-4 stars align. Autoguiding (internal). Meridian flip (went well without any interaction).
No autofocus (I don't have an autofocuser). No scheduler, just a single 100x120s sequence.
ZWO cameras. HEQ5 mount (cable connection). Astrometry.net (offline) with sextractor.
This coming weekend I am going to travel to a dark side (from Bortle 9 to Bortle 4) and try it there.
After that I'll try to upgrade to 1.5.1.
(Jasem mentioned that it could be done from the dashboard but people complained that there were still no updates as of earlier today).

Glad to hear about it. Dashboard update is broken in 1.5, run the Package Updater or just manually upgrade:

Great - thanks! Will do as soon as I am back on Sunday.

Hey with your ethernet connection to the PC, how did you have that configured? Was the Windows PC a DHCP server for the Stellarmate?

It's on my home network.
RPI's wire-connected to my router (through a hub). I assigned a fixed IP for SM - like 192.168.0.121.
All network settings - default.
I never had issues with the wired connection.
I did have issues with WiFi (RPI4. RPI3 was fine) but now it's also good (as of 1.5.0. Again, everything is default).
In the field I use a 10" HDMI monitor and USB mouse/keyboard. No network. <-- really like this setup.

I am going back to this as it is so much easier to focus without the delay inherit in using wifi or the iOS app. I've been hesitant about it as some ground loop condition blew out the HDMI port in my RPi3 when the battery ran out and i plugged in the 12vdc connector to the monitor and it sparked, no more video I will just me more careful about applying external power to the monitor while and ensure my batteries are charged.

I tried this but I get an error that the R is an invalid option.

as of now every sub has a permission restricting read/write so I can't transfer to my iMac .

any help to solve this is appreciated

Try "sudo chmod -R 776 *"
Make sure you are in the /Pictures directory before executing this command.

Two things:

1. Run this command: chmod -R u+rwX,go+rX,go-w /home/stellarmate/Pictures
2. Update to the latest packages as the above issue is resolved already with the latest KStars release available for StellarMate.