About crashes and bug reports in SharpCap

A place to report problems and bugs in SharpCap
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If you have a problem or question, please check the FAQ to see if it already has an answer : https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap-faqs

Please also read about Troubleshooting USB Issues before posting.

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Please include the following details in any bug report:

* Version of SharpCap
* Camera and other hardware being user
* Operating system version
* Contents of the SharpCap log after the problem has occurred.
[If SharpCap crashes, please send the bug report when prompted instead of including the log]
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About crashes and bug reports in SharpCap

#1

Post by admin »

Ahh, the dreaded 'SharpCap.exe Error' window that says that your imaging session has come to an abrupt and unwelcome end...

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What's it all about and why does it happen?

At its very simplest, this window shows when an error occurs inside the SharpCap code (or sometimes in the code of an ASCOM driver you are using) that SharpCap doesn't know how to deal with. If you press the 'Send and Quit' button on this window then SharpCap will try to upload a bug report to a secure storage location on the internet. We use the reports to help find and fix bugs in SharpCap to improve the quality of the software.

To try to explain how these bug reports work in more detail, here are some Questions and Answers covering this:

Q: What's in the bug report that gets uploaded?
A: Obviously the most important thing is the information about the error itself - what type of error it was and where it happened in SharpCap. The report also includes information on the hardware in use (camera, mount, focuser, etc) and the PC that is being used (Windows version, processor, memory, etc). Some software information is included too (SharpCap version, antivirus software that is being used, etc). Along with that the report includes the contents of the SharpCap log, which helps us track the actions that were taken that might have led to the error happening. Other information may be included for errors that are hard to track down (for instance when SharpCap freezes rather than crashes).

Q: Why can't SharpCap just keep going when it encounters an error?
A: Usually an unexpected error leaves the program in an unusual state - this means that the first error is often quickly followed by other problems (images not saving, camera controls not applying, hardware not responding, etc). If SharpCap kept going then it would likely be unreliable - what's more, keeping going makes it harder to track down the original cause of the problem.

Q: Do you look at all bug reports?
A: Not really, we focus on reports from the most recent versions of SharpCap - reports from old versions of SharpCap are usually dominated by bugs that have already been fixed in more up-to-date versions, making it much more productive to look at the reports from the newest versions. We also focus on reports that show the same issue has happened to more than one user.

Q: Sometimes I get an error, but it will not let me send a bug report. Why?
A: Some errors are expected to happen sometimes and SharpCap is set up to deal with them and show a message to the user explaining what has gone wrong (this has been improved greatly in SharpCap 4.0). These are not things that can be fixed by changing SharpCap, they are often things that need to be fixed by the end user instead. Examples of this type of error are:

* Cameras becoming disconnected while in use (perhaps the cable got pulled by mount movement or the camera itself encountered an issue)
* ASCOM drivers that are not installed properly or not configured properly
* ASCOM hardware that is switched off or not plugged in to the computer when SharpCap tries to talk to it
* ASCOM drivers that have bugs in them

When we encounter uploaded bug reports that fall into one of these categories, we often update SharpCap to try to prevent similar bug reports from being uploaded in future - this helps ensure that the bug reports that do get uploaded are mostly ones that we can fix by changing SharpCap, rather than ones that we can do nothing about.

Q: Can I send a bug report if I'm not connected to the internet when I am imaging?
A: Yes, click on the little downward pointing arrow on the 'Send and Quit' button and choose 'Send report manually' from the list of options. This will save the report as a zip file on your desktop, which you can then upload to a new thread in the 'Bug Reports' section of the forum when convenient. If you want, you can look inside the zip file to see what information is included in the bug report.

Q: What fraction of reported bugs do you fix?
A: It depends on the type of bug - if a bug is happening inside SharpCap code then we fix a high proportion straight away. Sometimes if it's hard to understand how the bug happens we may add extra information to the log so that we have more clues to work from if the bug happens again later in a version of SharpCap that has the extra log info.

Bugs that happen because a camera didn't behave the way we expected are harder - if a camera fails to capture a frame it can be hard to tell if it is a software error in SharpCap or a software error in the code from the camera manufacturer or a hardware problem of some sort. With this sort of bug, fixing the problem from the bug report may be impossible unless we have a very similar camera to test with, and even then it's possible that our camera will work fine when tested...
GaryS
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Re: About crashes and bug reports in SharpCap

#2

Post by GaryS »

Apologies Robin if this isn't the right location for a freeze report but this seemed a quick way to alert you to a problem I'm having with SC4.07976 as well as with the prior versions of the application.

Nearly every time I try to use Wiener De-convolution, it freezes SC. I hadn't tried it with the latest SC version until last night so I was kind of expecting a freeze and that's what happened. With a freeze I don't get a chance to submit a report. Its really inconvenient since I have to shut everything down and start my observing session all over again. My mount will not find gps lock if the computer starts first so I even have to shut the mount down and re-start it before re-starting the laptop.

Thank you for creating SC, it nearly always 'makes my day'...
Gary
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Re: About crashes and bug reports in SharpCap

#3

Post by admin »

Hi Gary,

the Weiner deconvolution is one of the most time consuming processing steps in SharpCap, so it could be that it is just very slow for you (if you have a high resolution camera and a slow PC). Even that should actually freeze SharpCap completely, although it may update very slowly. I'd suggest trying using binning or a smaller ROI as a test with the deconvolve function to see if that makes it work. Keep an eye on the 'Render time' entry in the live stacking status (https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/4.0/#Status%20Tab) - that shows how long it takes to do the image processing (including deconvolve), so if that rises above a couple of seconds then it may indicate a performance issue.

cheers,

Robin
GaryS
Posts: 175
Joined: Sun Mar 31, 2019 5:18 pm
Location: Boston, USA/Jackson Hole, USA

Re: About crashes and bug reports in SharpCap

#4

Post by GaryS »

Thank you Robin
Gary
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