Sharpcap fails to capture, says disk is full

[Higany]

Hello,

I got this problem about a week ago.
Sharpcap fails to capture, or save a snapshot, and says "An error has occured while writing to capture file. No more frames will be written during this capture. Maybe the file is too big or the disk is full?"

The disk is not full.

• I tried with different partitions, same result.
  Internal capture for plate solving works. On the same drive it doesn't want to capture.
  Other capture programs like Firecapture and APT works on the same partition with the same hardware.
  Camera is not open in another program at the same time.
  I have this issue regardless the camera (ASI120MM and ASI178MM)
  I tried different cables, different ports, no success. Btw, it worked earlier with the same hardware.
  I tried to run SC as Administrator, no change.
  I tried repair SC installation, no success.
  I tried to lower USB traffic, no change.

It's usually dropping frames also, but not always.

Operating system: Win10, 64-bit.
SC: latest version.
The screenshots were taken through RD-connection, but this is the same from local as well.

I can't recall, but maybe it started after I installed APT for D-SLR work.

[admin]

Hi,

Thanks for posting the error and the logs – it looks like there is a bug in the writing to fits format that is being misinterpreted by other parts of the code as a general error in writing to disk (which is most often caused by the disc being full). I think it's possible that the FITS code does not like a header where the value of the header is a piece of text that has no characters in, but I will have to investigate further.

Cheers, Robin

[Higany]

Hello,

thank you for the answer.
Do you know any workaround for this? (to put real "characters in the header". ) It worked earlier.

[admin]

Hi,

I suspect that the problem is being caused by one of the filters for your filter wheel having a blank name. When that filter with the blank name is the selected one then the bug is triggered because SharpCap tries to write the filter name into the fits headers. If you give that filter name – even something stupid like 'X' then I think you should be okay.

I have a fix for the problem anyway which will be in the next update.

Cheers, Robin

[Higany]

Thank you, this workaround solved the problem!

[AstroLaptop]

HI. I get this same message. It only happens on the laptop I use for EAA at my local astronomy society so at first I wasn't too bothered but now the committee would like me to save the individual frames so that they can process the images and post them on our social media.

I use a colour camera so a filter wheel is not the cause. I have tried using external drives of various types but I can still only saved the stacked image. The laptop is an Acer Aspire with an AMD processor and it was maufacctured in 2017. I have never had an issue using a computer with an Intel processor so might that be a cause?

Unfortunately it is the laptop ownded by the society for their outreach work so I can't change it for another (not unless one gets donated). Also the laptop stays at the observatory and I didn't think to check the logs so I can't give you those until I next go - judging by the weather forecast that won't be until later in the week.

Any insight you may have would be greatfully appreciated.

[admin]

Hi,

one other possibility that is worth checking is to look at the 'Filename Settings' in the SharpCap settings window. In older versions of SharpCap you could inadvertently set these up in a way that caused SharpCap to try to save files with the same name over and over again - each new save would overwrite the old one.

Once I found out about this problem, I made two changes

1) Stop SharpCap from overwriting existing image/video files - trying to do this will either prompt you for confirmation or cause the save to fail with an error

2) Added code to the filename settings window to detect the most common causes of this and warn you - and not let you save the settings until you have fixed the problem.

Unfortunately, sometimes the save error caused by item 1 gets reported to the user as a 'maybe the disk is full' - when I find places where that can happen I am fixing them, but not all found yet.

So, I'd suggest updating to the very latest SharpCap 4.1, checking the filename settings and making any changes to the naming that the program suggests if you get a warning about overwriting files.

If that doesn't fix it then please send me the log when you get the chance and I will dig further.

thanks,

Robin

[AstroLaptop]

Right OK. I'll make sure I'm on the latest version and that the saving file names etc are all on default settings.
I'll let you know how I get on.

Many thanks.

[AstroLaptop]

All is well. I'm not sure what fixed it but I am on the latest release and I left all filenames as default.
Many thanks.