Latest version blows the compter up

[Oberon510]

Hi,

I have sev 1 situation with the the latest SC 4.1 (11251) in that every time I connect to a camera and then run Polar Alignment the whole system (OS) crashes and the only way to start the system is pull the power and then turn it on.

The Shaprcap logs are 0 bytes so nothing to see there but the Windows logs indicate that the system powered off unexpectedly but this only happens when I start Polar Alingnment and press the next button in that - then I get the crash.

Anyone seen this at all as I may roll back to the previous version and see whether it is related to that version?

Thanks,
Ken

[Oberon510]

I tried 11239 and had the same issue.

[admin]

Hi,

wow! That's unexpected!

I am going to assume that you have Polar alignment set up so that it shows you the 'Introduction' page initially, in which case pressing 'Next' will move to the first alignment stage, which makes SharpCap start doing things like detecting stars in the image and trying to plate solve them against the stars in the sky. In the ordinary course of things, that shouldn't be able to crash the whole computer, but there are some things to think about

* At that stage SharpCap starts getting the CPU to do some significant work in the star detection - you could imagine a situation where there are hardware issues with the supply of power to the CPU and the high load might cause it to glitch completely

* SharpCap will also start using more memory at that point, which may cause issues if there is an underlying memory problem (bringing the problem area of memory into use).

Suggestions for things you can try...

* Try the 32 bit version of SharpCap if you are using 64 (or vice versa) - the different instructions used to do the calculations might make a difference to the outcome

* Try to find the latest version of SharpCap that will work for you - if you can find a version that works and a slightly newer version that doesn't then I have a much better chance of understanding what has changed that might cause this. If you keep going back and still can't find a version that works then it may indicate that something else has changed on your system to trigger the issue, rather than a change in SharpCap.

cheers,

Robin

[Oberon510]

Thanks Robin,

per your suggestions:-

- am revisiting the power supply as there seems to be a few errors in the Windows logs around that.
- am checking the Prolific driver with the iOptron Commander but disabled the mount in Settings and still had the issue. I thought it may be the iOptron Commander issue from 2019 come back to haunt us. This is the only hardware change - got the new strain wave mount yesterday so it is high on the triage list.
- will try to revert to 32bit SC if the above steps don't help.

I used a new power supply and ran PA this morning with just a camera and it started to work OK. Your power suggestion may be it.

Regards,
Ken

[Oberon510]

Close the loop here - it was the power supply.

Thanks,
Ken

[admin]

Wow, my psychic diagnosis skills are obviously on top form this week!

Good to hear that you got it sorted and everything is up and running again

Robin