Jasem has been very responsive to all my inquires and questions. I would use the StellarMate.com support section for your questions to him.

Edit - and here is he responding to your post Tom...

Hi,

Yesterday, after having installed on my RPi3B+ a new sd card with SM 1.5 in place of 1.4.6, I noticed that the system clock was no longer updated by the ds 3231 RTC. Thanks to Jasem, I could fix the problem.

I had to edit the /boot/config.txt file, go to # Hardware clock section and replace the existing line by "dtoverlay=i2c-rtc,ds3231" and then reboot. Since that, the system clock is updated when booting the Pi.

Jasem told me that this bug is now fixed in SM 1.5.

I found also that sometimes in Ekos/Kstars, some buttons in the INDI driver option tabs were inactive. In particular the save, load, default and purge ones, preventing me to save my new configuration. Today, I cannot reproduce this phenomena...

Apart from that, all seems to be working.

BR, Pierre-Yves

Hello,

For now, i only had problem with clock sync (corrected by modifying boot config.txt file ) and md5sum wrong in balenaEtcher.

I didn't try with my setup outside due to weather.

Clear skies!

ouioui

Pierre, were the button in an inactive state or did they just not respond to your click? Are you using VNC?

I have noted an issue with VNC where it will not respond to clicks properly and I have had to hold down the control key to get it to respond to the click. This occurs on my Mac, using Safari and Chrome browsers. If I click to another application and back on the browser, the clicks on the button respond as expected.

@mactech

I am working remotely using VNC. The client is a Linux Mint dell laptop connected to the Pi via its WIFI hotspot.

The buttons were clearly in an inactive state. Only one or two drivers were concerned in a randomly way.

Today, it works perfectly. I have disconnected and reconnected Ekos several times and I couldn't reproduce the problem. I updated this morning some drivers and libraries. Is it linked to that ?

PIerre-Yves

Other comment:

My feeling is that, generally speaking, 1.5/Raspbian is faster than 1.4.6/Ubuntu, at least on Rpi3B+. Also, the hotspot is established in less than one minute instead of two before.

PY

It did not update for me properly, despite following closely instructions on Stellarmate's website.

It got so far, then advised me it had failed the install. I went to try to update again then got the following screens (with less information on product update compared to my original try):



...then it failed showing the following message:



BOOM !!!

I then went to the dashboard to see what verion I was on and it went from 1.4.6 to 1.4.7:



So.. no 1.5.0

Not that it would make any difference seeing the equipment I have has been declared as incompatible with this Stellarmate/INDI setup.

Jaq

I just checked mine config.txt and changed it. thanks for posting this, helped me.
Nino

You can’t get the new 1.5.0 update like that you have got to re flash the SD card with the new image, as it’s a complete OS update from Ubuntu to Raspbian.....all you are doing is updating the old version with the latest updates for that version.....

I really struggled with USB / hotspot issues in the prior SM OS release, but this new release seems very stable. My config is: Pi4-4GB, 120GB SSD, ASI183mc Pro, ASI290mm Mini Guidescope, ASI EAF focuser, PPB, Celestron CGX-L mount. I use a powered 7 port USB 3 hub for all devices, and only the powered hub is connected to the Pi4's USB 3 port. Currently, I'm using a dedicated/separate 3 amp PS for the Pi4. All other power is from a 10amp PS split between mount and PPB (and then outward to USB hub, camera, focuser, and OTA fan).

I am still struggling a bit with "Infrastructure mode" networking dropping back to the generic hotspot, but I don't think this has anything to do with the new release. I read in one post that USB powered hubs might interfere with networking. Investigating/experimenting. Also heard that a USB based wireless antenna might help...thinking about this. Finally, the ever present "weak power" subject lingers, causing me to continue my search for a better way to maximize input power to the Pi (currently via either a more robust C cable or ganged hub output).

Overall, very happy so far with this new release stability!

When the dashboard is started while connected with the realVNC viewer, it is frequently disconnected. I have reported it to jasem, do you have any similar symptoms? By the way, disconnection does not occur when you are not connected to the dashboard.

I have had a couple disconnects when running wifi but cannot recall that I did with direct ethernet. There are a lot of wifi devices here in my office, so who knows the cause might be interference. I might try Teamviewer, assuming my older license will work with it and see if it works any better than VNC.