Captures fail on the odd occasion

Discussions, Bug Reports and Issues related to Beta versions of SharpCap
philinbris
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Sep 26, 2020 10:43 pm

Captures fail on the odd occasion

#1

Post by philinbris »

Hi Robin.

This is in relation to SharpCap 4.0.7944 (64 Bit) - though I am not sure that this issue was introduced in this version.
The camera in use is the ASI533MCP cooled to -5 DegC.
The Captures are being created using the older Capture rather than the newer Sequencer (as per my last post).

When I was taking Darks last night I had a situation where the first run of Darks worked OK, and I cannot recall - maybe the second run as well. But then the Darks started to fail to be created. On one occasion the first file was created, but then the subsequent files got dropped. On another occasion, nothing was captured and all were dropped.

To get things going again, sometimes turning off live view and then turning it back on followed by a new capture worked, but then that stopped working so I had to restart SharpCap.

I tried to replicate the issue tonight, but all seems OK and I cannot get this happening again.

Is this a problem that has been seen before?

Cheers
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Re: Captures fail on the odd occasion

#2

Post by admin »

Hi,

it sounds as though you may have been hitting some issues with the ZWO camera not delivering frames to SharpCap. I've had a couple of other similar reports and they have also been difficult to reproduce - sometimes the problem appears and other times everything is fine.

If you can find the SharpCap log from the run that had problems then I would like to see it.

thanks,

Robin
philinbris
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Joined: Sat Sep 26, 2020 10:43 pm

Re: Captures fail on the odd occasion

#3

Post by philinbris »

Hi Robin
I am pretty sure this is one of the logs from when I had the issue.
I am sure the USB speed was set to the minimum value during all captures.
Cheers
Attachments
Log.zip
(37.77 KiB) Downloaded 63 times
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Re: Captures fail on the odd occasion

#4

Post by admin »

Hi,

thanks for sharing - do you happen to remember the time at which the problem happened? There is a lot of content in the log and nothing jumps out at me on a first scan through, but if I knew a time to focus in on maybe something would become apparent. Also, can you recall

a) if the number of dropped frames was going up when you had a problem
b) if the frame timer was over-running when you had a problem (time left going negative)

While I haven't made any significant progress with this log, I have been checking the code around the ZWO capture in still mode and improving logging if there is a problem. I also know that in some cases the ZWO camera seems to get stuck in a 'working' state - ie it thinks it is taking an exposure, but SharpCap thinks it should be idle. So far I have not found a way to snap it out of that state - in the next update I will be trying code that puts the camera into video mode and then back to still mode to try to cure that.

cheers,

Robin
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Re: Captures fail on the odd occasion

#5

Post by admin »

Hi,

I have uploaded a new version this evening - 4.0.7957 - which has improved logging to try to track down what is going on when you are getting these failures. I don't think I've fixed the problem (unless my guess at how to reset the camera out of its 'stuck' mode turns out to be a lucky one), but I hope I've stopped the problem from being able to happen without anything informative showing up in the log.

If you test with an exposure above 2.5s, every start/end frame of ZWO cameras should show up in the log along with more detailed information if anything doesn't go as planned.

Note that I have removed the ability to change between live and still mode while capturing - the fact that was possible was a bug. I did notice from your log that it looked like you had tried that a few times. Even though it may have been able to kick the camera back into action in some cases, the code wasn't designed with that switch while capturing in mind, so I do not want to leave it available.

thanks,

Robin
philinbris
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Joined: Sat Sep 26, 2020 10:43 pm

Re: Captures fail on the odd occasion

#6

Post by philinbris »

Thanks Robin.
I shall download and install now then see what the clouds are up to.
Regarding your questions a and b.
a - yes, the number of dropped frames was incrementing.
b - I am not sure (did not notice the timer going negative).
Cheers

Update:
The clouds were not kind so I ended up taking more darks inside.
I took 20 of each 10 sec, 45 sec, 90 sec and 120 sec and then finished with 20 15 sec darks.
Not a single issue tonight.
If something happens over the coming nights I will post the logs back here.
Thanks.
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Re: Captures fail on the odd occasion

#7

Post by admin »

Ok, thanks for testing. This one is going to be tricky as it seems to be very intermittent, so hard to catch it happening and even harder to be sure if it has been fixed or not :(

cheers,

Robin
philinbris
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Re: Captures fail on the odd occasion

#8

Post by philinbris »

Hi Robin,
A full night of imaging tonight.
Took a few sets of Lights then Flats and Dark Flats, not a single issue.
Cheers
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Re: Captures fail on the odd occasion

#9

Post by admin »

Hi,

just a thought, I have seen some of the larger sensor cameras be unreliable when they do not have 12V power attached. Could that have been related to the problems you were having?

Anyway, there is also a new SDK from ZWO which I have added to SharpCap and will release on monday. The change log for the SDK says 'fix some bugs' :)

cheers,

Robin
philinbris
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Re: Captures fail on the odd occasion

#10

Post by philinbris »

Hi Robin,
I always image with the 12V connected.
I know the flats and dark flats do not need to be the same temp, but I take them all at the same time after the lights so convenient to use the same temp as the lights - which is currently -5 DegC.
Cheers
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