SharpCap Forums

Hi Robin.
I'm experiencing some odd behaviour and hope you can assist.

Been a while since I last booted the kit up and in the meanwhile I've taken the past 2-3 SharpCap updates before venturing out last few days (as the weather has been so good)

Apologies that I've not screen grabbed the errors/messages but basically it's saying it's not seeing the keyboard, telling me sharpcap is not responding and do I want to wait, close etc.

I have had logs running, picked one and hoping this attaches ok -

My set up was running fine when last fired up (many weeks back) so wondering if it something in the recent updates?

The kit is;
Win 10 laptop
laptop - USB mouse
laptop USB 3 to powered USB hub - approx 3m cable.
from powered hub to -
ZWO ASI 249C camera
HitecAstro DC focuser
CGEM mount via NexStar+ hand controller
just added the QHY5-L guide camera but took that out the loop when things went fritzy.

ASCOM 6 (just updated to 6.4 pack) and the manuf supplied ASCOM drivers, all updated to latest (I believe)

HW setting is for Celestron Telescope Driver and Hitec DC Focuser

my usual running order is;

I use CdC to get the scope pointed at a something, then disconnect that (so as to avoid USB port clashes with SharpCap) and fire up SC.
Connect the ASI249C, get a basic image then connect the Focuser and focus with Bhatinov. Then plate solve (AstroTorilla) to fine tune the mount.

Never had a problem until this week but now, repeatedly and reliably at various times during the above process SC becomes unresponsive/hangs

My suspicion is the Hitec Focuser - as it seems to happen mainly when doing the focusing - as such I loaded their most recent DC Focuser 1 drivers but this didn't help.

I also tried the 64 bit version of current SC - no difference.

Had a look at the logs, but all Geek to me I'm afraid


rgds
Lawrence

Hi,

It's very likely that it could be the focuser take a very long time to respond to commands that is causing this problem, but the best way to be sure is use the functionality built into SharpCap to allow freezes and hangs to be reported.

When you see this message appear
Please choose the option to report the problem, then enter a description of what you are doing (it needs to be about 30 or 40 characters before the OK button becomes enabled). Finally choose to send the error report in the next window that appears after entering the description. If you are on a computer that is connected to the network then just pressing 'send and quit' should be fine. If not there is little drop-down arrow on that button where you can choose to send the report manually.

Let me know when you sent a report one way or the other and I will check it out more detail.

Cheers, Robin

Hi Robin,

Fired up and got the unresponsive/hang when I tried to connect to the Hitec Focuser - grabbed a log and emailed across earlier this evening. Hope it illuminates and hones in on the issue.

FYI -

I removed the focuser from the HW setting, rebooted SC and used the Focuser with its 'standalone' app outside of SharpCap - all good and SC was fine all night, no issues, errors, hangs etc - result.

Even managed to fire up PHD2 (first time use) and get that connected in Live Capture - another learning curve looming with guiding! Quite engrossing watching graph of corrections scroll across the History box - no idea what it means just yet.................

Many thanks

Lawrence