Renzo replied to the topic 'launch Indiserver on linux laptop' in the forum. 11 months ago

Bump up

Any idea? The only suggestion I can find around is about launching "indiserver", but as I wrote I get an error message.

I feel like it should be something pretty easy for an experienced user or developer (like the ones in this forum) to help with, even with just a link to a guide (maybe I'm not reading the right tutorials).

Thanks in advance for your time

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Renzo created a new topic ' launch Indiserver on linux laptop' in the forum. 11 months ago

Hi everyone.
I have an EQ6 mount and other devices compatible with INDI, which I usually use with an Astroberry RPi4. However, this post is about connecting them via a laptop with Linux (sometimes I have to use this setup), by using EKOS.
My laptop runs Opensuse Tumbleweed, updated, with kernel 6.2.10, latest version of Kstars and libindi (indiserver says version 2.0.1, Protocol 1.7).
In order to connect my EQ6 mount (old version, black, serial port, handset version 3) and bypass the handset, I have to use a serial-to-usb EQDIR cable with the FTDI R232 chipset. The "ftdi_sio" module (and also modules "usbcore" and "usbserial" as dependencies) is loaded at startup, and the dmesg command correctly recognises plugging in and unplugging of the cable: see screenshot.


Also, the stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 command spits out the following:
Speed 9600 baud, line = 0;
-brkint -imaxbel
I'm not an expert of stty, but it seems to me this is quite standard and there should not be any big issue.
Anyway, when I start Ekos and try to connect the mount with the correct EQmod driver, the Indi log at the bottom is stuck on just the first line, saying: “Starting INDI services…” and nothing else happens. Also, looking at the text Log files in “/home/user/.local/share/kstars/logs”, there’s a constant line printed by INDI: [ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Driver "EQMod Mount" failed to start. Retrying in 5 seconds…” and of course after 5 seconds the same warning again.

I also tried to launch the command “sudo service indiserver status” before running ekos, but and it says “no such service indiserver”.
Therefore I think the problem may be that INDI is not started and I cannot start it for some reason.
Any suggestion on this, please?

Thanks in advance
Renzo

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Renzo replied to the topic 'Canon EOS400D not connecting to PC' in the forum. 4 years ago

Yes, I've just tried (with the same cable) with a Canon EOS 700D (a non-astro-modified camera I use for normal photography) and it works perfectly.
It is now also my impression that the 400D's usb port is the problem and, since it's an old camera, I'm not even going to attempt a repair. Such a shame :/
Thanks anyway for your comments, everyone.

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Hello,

I have a Star Adventurer that I use for DSLR imaging and I would like to be able to dither automatically while a shooting sequence is running (with appropriate interval time between two shots).
I know that the Star Adventurer only has a motor in the RA axis, however I would like to automate dithering on this axis.

I have a doubt: what cables should I use? The mount has an ST4 port that uses for guiding, and I need to connect this to the PC directly (not through a guiding camera), hence I think I need an ST4 to usb3 cable. Has anyone seen or uses anything like this? I have found some products online but they are all unavailable at the moment. Any other suggestion from Star Adventurer users?

Thanks for your help.
Cheers

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Renzo replied to the topic 'Canon EOS400D not connecting to PC' in the forum. 4 years ago

Hi and thanks for your replies.

I did some more tests to exclude some causes.

- just to be clear, the camera and all of its components (e.g. battery) work perfectly fine. Definitely not a case of low battery or such.
- more than one cable has been tried, and none worked with the camera. all of these cables worked with other devices (e.g. a hard drive)
- checked the mount list before and after plugging in and activating the camera: no changes
- I managed to find a machine with Windows 7 to try: new plugged in device not found by the system, and of course also Canon EOS Utility failed.
- I also tried dmesg to see if anything was happening at kernel level: I attach here a screenshot of the output (PS: same output if I use other USB ports on this computer).

After this, my conclusion is that everything works and the Linux system is actually doing something to connect to the camera, but the camera is not working well. I am sure it is the camera itself and not the cable, or any other thing.
Other possible causes that I am thinking about:
- although it's hard to believe, but could the mini usb port on the camera be broken/faulty?
- the dmesg output mentioned the "xhci_hcd" module (for usb3 ports); I know in the past (more than 6 years ago, I think) this module and its older brother "ehci_hcd" (for usb2 ports) had some issues in many Linux systems, but I think everything should work fine now straight from xhci_hcd....but if anyone is aware of any issue please let me know.
- I think the only thing left to try is reinstalling the firmware, but I can't find it online...I'll give a better look, but if you have a link to suggest, please feel free to let me know.
- one thing I have noticed is that I am using a CF card (the only one I have at the moment) with Magic Lantern included (I use it on another camera): could this maybe mess up with the firmware and usb communications?

Thanks for your time again.
Cheers

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Renzo created a new topic ' Canon EOS400D not connecting to PC' in the forum. 4 years ago

Hi all.

This is my first post, so please let me start by sending a huge thanks to KNRO for developing Ekos!

I am going crazy after an issue I can't solve:
- I own a Canon EOS400D (it's old, I know, but it still works for my astropics) and a USB cable
- I use Linux (latest openSuse) on my PC and both gphoto and libgphoto2 are installed and up to date
- Problem: I can't manage to make my PC recognise the camera!

What I tried:
- lsusb: no usb detected (apart from other known devices)...camera does not communicate (not a great start...)!
- gphoto --auto-detect or similar from digiKam (and other software too): not working (since there's no usb detected...)
- of course the camera is on and the usb cable is working.
- some other people online suggested to play around with the PTP protocol setting but....there seems to be no such setting (e.g. communication settings) on the camera! ...but the gphoto2 website says the EOS400D is supported!
- I can't try on a Windows machine, but anyway I've read that EOS Utility software would work up to Windows 7.

Conclusions: I think something fundamentally wrong is going on here!
- is this DSLR model even able to be setup with PTP? (PS: just to be super sure - can you confirm that PTP is the protocol needed to communicate with INDI/Ekos? or maybe something else is needed to make the camera model accessible?)
- in the camera settings, Firmware is set to 1.1.1: do you think I need to try and reinstall the firmware?
- bonus question: I heard about the Shoestring USB solution, but I don't know if it's what I need to make this work...and I definitely prefer not to waste money on a hope! Any clue?

Basically the camera doesn't even communicate with the PC. I tried every setting or button, but nothing. Ideally, my aim is to connect it to a Linux machine (or a raspberry pi in the future) to automate captures and dithering, etc...
I would be very grateful if someone could help me here. Even if your opinion is negative and you think this model can't be used with Ekos...that's an acceptable reply, at least I will stop trying.

Thanks to all in advance.

Cheers

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