Pro version freeze cycle

[Stever]

Hi Having used the free version of SharpCap successfully for some years, in April I paid for the pro version (3.2.6480). I have been using a QHY5III462 camera successfully up to that point. Since I upgraded, the camera seems to be recording / displaying in a 2-3 second cycle, where it displays almost normally for 2 to 3 seconds, almost freezes for half a second, begins again normally for 2-3 seconds when it almost freezes again. This cycle continues. No change in framerate, exposure or any other parameters on the SharpCap control panel stops this happening. (Actually, lowering the framerate makes it worse.)

I am using a Lenova 10148 all-in-one PC, windows 10 x64 system with 6GB ram. The camera connection is a 3m USB A to B 3.0. The only other application I am running concurrently is SkyX. Both ran together happily prior to my SharpCapPro upgrade.

The camera operates normally with FireCapture.

The only thing that is common to the beginning of this problem is the installation of the Pro version. Is it using a different configuration which might put a greater demand on a physical or storage resource? Is there a non-displayed windows or SharpCap parameter which I can try changing. The current halting display makes focussing more difficult.

[admin]

Hi Steve,

just adding a pro licence key shouldn't have any effect on the amount of resources that SharpCap consumes. Of course once you have the pro key installed you can turn on some features that do end up using additional resources (like some of the advanced sharpening noise reduction features in live stacking), but it doesn't sound to me like you are doing anything like that.

My first guess is that it might help to try adjusting the USB traffic control for your camera – you'll find it in the controls panel on the right-hand side. For Qhy cameras, setting this to higher values tend to result in a lower frame rate but more reliability in communication with the camera. Setting it to lower values tend to result in a higher frame rate, but can sometimes lead to instability. It would certainly be worth trying to adjust this in both directions to see if it helps resolve your problem.

Cheers, Robin

[Stever]

No change in problem effected by USB adjustment - nor any other on the exposure panel. Also swapped out cable to confirm that isn't the problem either. Confirmed that camera works fine with FireCapture. Failing other suggestions, I will revert to standard non Pro version (or even back to v3.1)to see if problem disappears or persists.

[admin]

Hi,

the only other suggestion is to use SharpCap 4.0 and enable extra logging of camera communications (there is a new 'Logging' page of the settings in 4.0). That will produce a hugely long log, but it might contain some clues as to what is going on - especially if we see an unusual pattern every 2-3 seconds.

cheers,

Robin