Following up on my original post, I spent some time getting oacapture to work from
www.openastroproject.org/downloads/
Initially I ran into some issues installing it due to dependency conflicts. I opened an issue describing the problem here:
github.com/openastroproject/openastro/issues/494
Once I was able to install oacapture, I found that the NexImage 10 CCD worked out of the box without any additional configuration.
I believe one of the most obvious differences is that oacapture uses the RGB24 frame format by default whereas INDI / Ekos uses the 8-bit Bayer GRGR/BGGB format by default without any option to use RGB24 capture format. There are also 8-bit / 16-bit greyscale options and an option with a UUID for a name in the INDI control panel capture options. Interestingly, though, oacapture doesn't seem to have any issue when selecting any of the other capture formats that it has available regardless if they are color or greyscale.
Since I am able to use at least two other pieces of capture software without issue, and I only seem to have crashes with the INDI driver, I have to conclude that there is an issue specific to the generic v4l2 CCD driver provided by INDI when used with the NexImage 10. As there are no other obvious driver choices for the NexImage 10 CCD to test against, and there are posts that suggest the v4l2 driver is the correct one, I'm not sure what the next steps are from a user perspective.
It seems that I could use kstars / INDI for telescope control and oacapture for photography, but that's not an ideal situation.
Again, any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
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Hello,
I'm new to INDI and I'm running into some issues trying to get the NexImage 10 CCD working. There are a few rare instances where I have been able to capture some preview frames in testing, but almost always my attempts result in the driver or kstars / ekos crashing. If anyone has any experience with this CCD I would really appreciate some assistance getting up and running. I'm going to include as much relevant information here as I can think of, but I'm happy to provide as much information as I can to get this working.
So far I've been messing around with this for several weeks without success. I have been able to use guvcview to verify that the CCD does in fact work and is able to capture color images. So this doesn't seem to be an issue with the CCD or my laptop / distro / kernel / etc. This seems specifically to be an issue with INDI / kstars / ekos.
To test I setup a simple device profile with only the CCD and another profile with simulated devices for everything except the CCD itself. There doesn't seem to be a difference between the two profiles as far as the results are concerned.
This is the INDI control panel log for the v4l2 CCD when I connect to the device:
2020-12-20T03:59:28: [INFO] Loading device configuration...
2020-12-20T03:59:28: [INFO] Please report that the camera worked: Name: NexImage 10/NexImage 10 Detected and working, to https://bit.ly/2S1Vxjq
2020-12-20T03:59:28: [INFO] Setting pixel size correctly for NexImage 10
2020-12-20T03:59:28: [WARNING] Manual/auto exposure control is not possible on the device!
2020-12-20T03:59:28: [INFO] Found initial Input "Camera 1", Format "8-bit Bayer GRGR/BGBG", Size 3840x2160, Frame interval 1/8s
2020-12-20T03:59:28: [INFO] V4L2 CCD Device is online. Initializing properties. I have found at least one forum post/url] where this was apparently resolved by a firmware update. However when I started to investigate this option it seems that the manufacturer indicates their USB3 devices (like the NexImage 10) should "work out of the box". They don't seem to provide a way to build the firmware like they do with other devices and specifically list a set of CCD models that their instructions apply to.
Part of the problem seems to be that the default settings use a resolution of 3872x2764 (the maximum) whereas the CCD resolution is 3856x2764. Using a resolution of 3840x2160 appears to work more reliably, but it is not consistent. Using a resolution higher than this seems to result in a segfault. There is no exact resolution match for listed resolution.
Additionally, it seems that using any resolution in color capture mode also results in a segfault. This CCD is sold as a 10MP color CCD, and I was intending to take color images with it. Having only grayscale mode in a limited subset of resolutions is not a great experience.
This has been very difficult to troubleshoot as the log window disappears when the driver crashes. Setting the driver to use debug mode immediately toggles debug mode off without any messages to indicate the reason for doing so:
2020-12-20T04:04:41: [INFO] Debug is disabled.
2020-12-20T04:04:41: [INFO] Debug is enabled. Further causing frustration is the fact that the v4l2 settings panel doesn't seem to save all settings when clicking the save button on the options page. This means that in the few cases that I have been able to capture frames while testing, I end up losing the functional settings when I reopen kstars (either after closing it intentionally or after a crash).
Some additional notes are that when using the video streaming mode on the streaming tab of the INDI control panel to test with, it crashes without fail. I have yet to find a set of values which will not crash in streaming mode.
I have configured verbose logging and the output is not entirely helpful:
[2020-12-19T20:13:58.404 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.capture] - "Capturing 1.000-second Red image..."
[2020-12-19T20:13:58.405 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - V4L2 CCD : "[WARNING] Failed switching to manual exposure, control is unavailable "
[2020-12-19T20:13:58.408 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - V4L2 CCD : "[INFO] Started 1.000-second manual exposure. "
[2020-12-19T20:14:03.835 PST CRIT ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - INDI driver "indi_v4l2_ccd" crashed!
[2020-12-19T20:14:03.840 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos] - "V4L2 CCD is offline."
[2020-12-19T20:14:14.975 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos] - Ekos received a new device: "V4L2 CCD"
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.144 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - V4L2 CCD : "[INFO] V4L2 CCD Device is online. Initializing properties. "
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.144 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos] - "V4L2 CCD" Version: "1.0" Interface: 2 is connected.
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.144 PST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos] - 6 devices connected out of 6
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.144 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos] - All INDI devices are now connected.
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.197 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.align] - "World Coordinate System (WCS) is enabled. CCD rotation must be set either manually in the CCD driver or by solving an image before proceeding to capture any further images, otherwise the WCS information may be invalid."
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.198 PST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.capture] - Registering new Module ( "Mount" )
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.198 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos] - "V4L2 CCD is online."
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.212 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - V4L2 CCD : "[INFO] Found initial Input \"Camera 1\", Format \"8-bit Bayer GRGR/BGBG\", Size 3840x2160, Frame interval 1/8s "
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.213 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - V4L2 CCD : "[WARNING] Manual/auto exposure control is not possible on the device! "
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.216 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - V4L2 CCD : "[INFO] Setting pixel size correctly for NexImage 10 "
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.216 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - V4L2 CCD : "[INFO] Please report that the camera worked: Name: NexImage 10/NexImage 10 Detected and working, to https://bit.ly/2S1Vxjq "
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.218 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - V4L2 CCD : "[INFO] Loading device configuration... "
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.219 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - V4L2 CCD : "[INFO] Upload settings set to client only. "
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.220 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - V4L2 CCD : "[INFO] Device configuration applied. "
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.220 PST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - V4L2 CCD : "[INFO] World Coordinate System is enabled. "
[2020-12-19T20:14:15.221 PST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.capture] - Registering new Module ( "Guide" )Here is an example of the dmesg output:
[10143.757125] usb 2-2: USB disconnect, device number 3
[10150.073292] usb 2-2: new SuperSpeed Gen 1 USB device number 4 using xhci_hcd
[10150.093872] usb 2-2: LPM exit latency is zeroed, disabling LPM.
[10150.095707] usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=199e, idProduct=8619, bcdDevice= 0.00
[10150.095709] usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[10150.095709] usb 2-2: Product: NexImage 10
[10150.095710] usb 2-2: Manufacturer: Celestron
[10150.095710] usb 2-2: SerialNumber: 37024678
[10150.096614] uvcvideo: Unknown video format 36314142-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
[10150.096617] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.10 device NexImage 10 (199e:8619)
[10298.657106] indi_v4l2_ccd[49757]: segfault at 7fd4122b8000 ip 00007fd4151f176e sp 00007ffe16440bd0 error 4 in libindidriver.so.1.8.8[7fd41516c000+a3000]
[10298.657111] Code: ff 48 69 ff 56 55 55 55 48 c1 ef 20 41 88 7b 01 e9 8d 00 00 00 45 0f b6 4c 00 01 41 0f b6 5c 00 ff 41 01 d9 41 d1 f9 44 88 0a <45> 0f b6 4c 05 00 41 0f b6 3c 00 44 01 cf 44 0f b6 49 01 44 01 cf
[10431.249232] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10457.566722] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10468.731491] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10482.616197] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10503.323145] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10555.408782] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10560.163338] indi_v4l2_ccd[50121]: segfault at 7fb8316c5000 ip 00007fb835116726 sp 00007fffeacac360 error 4 in libindidriver.so.1.8.8[7fb835091000+a3000]
[10560.163344] Code: 20 40 88 7a 01 48 85 c0 0f 85 dc 00 00 00 4c 39 24 24 0f 85 d2 00 00 00 41 0f b6 78 01 45 0f b6 48 ff 44 01 cf d1 ff 41 88 3b <41> 0f b6 7d 00 45 0f b6 08 44 01 cf 45 0f b6 4a 01 44 01 cf 45 0f
[10664.285996] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10670.578493] indi_v4l2_ccd[50472]: segfault at 7f932ae76000 ip 00007f932ddaf726 sp 00007ffe7a263a60 error 4 in libindidriver.so.1.8.8[7f932dd2a000+a3000]
[10670.578498] Code: 20 40 88 7a 01 48 85 c0 0f 85 dc 00 00 00 4c 39 24 24 0f 85 d2 00 00 00 41 0f b6 78 01 45 0f b6 48 ff 44 01 cf d1 ff 41 88 3b <41> 0f b6 7d 00 45 0f b6 08 44 01 cf 45 0f b6 4a 01 44 01 cf 45 0f
[10714.817631] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10721.647617] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10757.737003] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10783.850700] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10809.533346] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10825.432879] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10848.237293] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10934.207083] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[10940.503517] indi_v4l2_ccd[50711]: segfault at 7f4e71662000 ip 00007f4e7459b726 sp 00007ffd9e347b30 error 4 in libindidriver.so.1.8.8[7f4e74516000+a3000]
[10940.503522] Code: 20 40 88 7a 01 48 85 c0 0f 85 dc 00 00 00 4c 39 24 24 0f 85 d2 00 00 00 41 0f b6 78 01 45 0f b6 48 ff 44 01 cf d1 ff 41 88 3b <41> 0f b6 7d 00 45 0f b6 08 44 01 cf 45 0f b6 4a 01 44 01 cf 45 0f
[10948.011264] kstars[49603]: segfault at 18 ip 0000563300bde865 sp 00007ffffaa4b100 error 4 in kstars[56330024d000+99b000]
[10948.011269] Code: 1c 49 8d 74 24 40 48 8b 7c 24 08 e8 c5 2d 68 ff 85 c0 75 09 45 84 ff 0f 85 df 00 00 00 48 83 c3 08 49 39 de 0f 84 bc 00 00 00 <48> 8b 13 8b 42 10 83 fd 05 74 04 39 c5 75 e4 4c 8b 22 44 0f b6 7a
[11012.552713] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[11018.837966] indi_v4l2_ccd[51654]: segfault at 7fc05e2ec000 ip 00007fc061225726 sp 00007ffcf60d70f0 error 4 in libindidriver.so.1.8.8[7fc0611a0000+a3000]
[11018.837972] Code: 20 40 88 7a 01 48 85 c0 0f 85 dc 00 00 00 4c 39 24 24 0f 85 d2 00 00 00 41 0f b6 78 01 45 0f b6 48 ff 44 01 cf d1 ff 41 88 3b <41> 0f b6 7d 00 45 0f b6 08 44 01 cf 45 0f b6 4a 01 44 01 cf 45 0f
[11069.647108] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[11074.519060] indi_v4l2_ccd[51795]: segfault at 7f4263fec000 ip 00007f4266f25726 sp 00007ffc6bf7ab30 error 4 in libindidriver.so.1.8.8[7f4266ea0000+a3000]
[11074.519065] Code: 20 40 88 7a 01 48 85 c0 0f 85 dc 00 00 00 4c 39 24 24 0f 85 d2 00 00 00 41 0f b6 78 01 45 0f b6 48 ff 44 01 cf d1 ff 41 88 3b <41> 0f b6 7d 00 45 0f b6 08 44 01 cf 45 0f b6 4a 01 44 01 cf 45 0f
[11107.472042] uvcvideo: Non-zero status (-71) in video completion handler.
[11113.214965] indi_v4l2_ccd[51876]: segfault at 7fa2a8715000 ip 00007fa2ab64e726 sp 00007fffe28556e0 error 4 in libindidriver.so.1.8.8[7fa2ab5c9000+a3000]
[11113.214975] Code: 20 40 88 7a 01 48 85 c0 0f 85 dc 00 00 00 4c 39 24 24 0f 85 d2 00 00 00 41 0f b6 78 01 45 0f b6 48 ff 44 01 cf d1 ff 41 88 3b <41> 0f b6 7d 00 45 0f b6 08 44 01 cf 45 0f b6 4a 01 44 01 cf 45 0f
[11113.337109] kstars[51572]: segfault at 5500843b2298 ip 00007fc30934dcec sp 00007ffdebeafd78 error 6 in libQt5Core.so.5.12.8[7fc3092ba000+2e0000]
[11113.337121] Code: 85 c0 74 08 f0 41 83 68 08 01 74 02 c3 90 be 10 00 00 00 4c 89 c7 e9 73 c4 f6 ff 90 66 90 f3 0f 1e fa 48 8b 07 48 85 c0 74 1c <f0> 83 68 08 01 75 15 48 8b 3f 48 85 ff 74 0d be 10 00 00 00 e9 4bAdditional device information:
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 199e:8619 The Imaging Source Europe GmbH NexImage 10TheImagingSource firmware tool device info:
Device manufacturer: Celestron
Product name: NexImage 10
Serial number: <REDACTED>
VendorID:ProductID: 199e:8619
Firmware version: 508Read More...