Atik 16200 won't save frames

[Mystic_Hill]

Major source of frustration first time out with Atik 16200 and SharpCap 4.0: I cannot save images in normal mode. (I had to save images from Preview Mode with the background level at almost 50%.)

Here is the error snipped from the log:


Warning 05:02:56.762703 #15 Camers is not idle, instead is CAMERA_FLUSHING in BufferFrame SharpCap.Cameras.Atik.AtikCameraProxy.GrabFrameStillMode(CancellationToken token)
Info 05:02:56.763699 #15 Waiting for camera flush to complete. in BufferFrame SharpCap.Cameras.Atik.AtikCameraProxy.GrabFrameStillMode(CancellationToken token)
Info 05:02:57.015367 #15 Waiting for camera flush to complete. in BufferFrame SharpCap.Cameras.Atik.AtikCameraProxy.GrabFrameStillMode(CancellationToken token)
Info 05:02:57.266937 #15 Waiting for camera flush to complete. in BufferFrame SharpCap.Cameras.Atik.AtikCameraProxy.GrabFrameStillMode(CancellationToken token)
Info 05:02:57.518431 #15 Waiting for camera flush to complete.

Then the image would be counted as a dropped frame and the process would repeat all over again.

I am not familiar with the nature of this message and wonder if anyone else has seen it and knows of a fix or workaround. I won't be offended if it turns out to be newbie operator error.

[admin]

Hi Roy,

it looks like the camera is staying in the FLUSHING state (whatever that means) for a long time and SharpCap is waiting for it to finish flushing and move to the idle state before it starts taking a frame. Under certain operations there is a timeout at a higher level that basically gives up after about 30s + exposure length, which I think you might be encountering.

A couple of things would help me work out how to deal with this

1) The full log from your attempts to get it to work - I think that will include some info that helps me track down exactly where the cancellation is coming from

2) An idea of how long it does take for each frame to appear in normal mode. From your other post it sounds like you could see images in normal mode, so the camera must be working at some level. If you set say a 1s exposure, how often does the image update? Does it take 1s to expose then 20s to download and flush or 30s or what?

cheers,

Robin

[Mystic_Hill]

Robin,

I think this will be instructive. It appears that I tried to capture M13 from 21:43 to 21:58:39. No frames were received. In 15m 18 frames were dropped, suggesting 30s to expose, 20s to drop frame. I believe these were normal mode frames; don't recall if they were viewable on screen during a sequence.

I was then able to capture 120 frames in "Preview" mode of 30s duration from 22:02 to 23:26. (From this I calculated 12s to download but Previews are supposed to be faster.)

"Did not find sensor characteristics at C:\Program Files\SharpCap 4.0 (64 bit)\SensorLibrary\Atik 16200~MONO16.json" <- Is that an issue?

I must say that plate solving with Astap worked great!

When I could see the sensor in normal mode on screen a 30 second exposure had background pixel values about 3500, compared to 30000 for preview mode (with four column defects ).

[admin]

Hi Roy,

Ok, so I've had another poke around at the code and the documentation for Atik cameras and it looks possible that I might be calling 'StopExposure' too much (sometimes when it is not needed). StopExposure is apparently what triggers the 'flushing' mode, which will continue for some time on certain cameras.

What I'm going to do is try to cut out the unnecessary calls to StopExposure and also increase the timeout allowed for capturing a frame from 15s beyond the exposure time to 30s beyond the exposure time - those changes will be in next week's SharpCap 4.1 update to see if they help.

There's no need to worry about the sensor characteristics mesage - that's just SharpCap saying it could find a sensor analysis result for the current camera (which means that the smart histogram functionality is unavailable).

So, if you have a chance, try next week's SharpCap 4.1 update and see if that helps. If not I have a contact at Atik who I can pester to see if he has any ideas.

cheers,

Robin

[Mystic_Hill]

OK, thanks Robin. Looking forward to the update. row

[Mystic_Hill]

Robin,

I downloaded the latest beta, 11003. Was not able to capture any images, preview or otherwise. Was not able to put an image onscreen with LiveView. Attached is a representative log.

[admin]

Hi Roy,

well, at least we have some more info - every frame is timing out after about 31s (SharpCap is waiting 1s for the exposure and an additional 30 for the image to arrive then giving up).

30s seems a long time to me for the frame to download from the camera to the computer, but I have never used this particular camera, so maybe that is standard - if you use other software in non-preview mode, roughly how long does the download take?

cheers,

Robin

[Mystic_Hill]

Wife tried the camera with Atik's distribution of Artemis. I'll load that tonight and find out.

[Mystic_Hill]

Robin,

To follow up, I installed the "Dusk" software, part of the Atik download package, and was able to acquire 15 frames (1 s each) saved to disk in 5 minutes. This suggests that the download time is about 20s for a full frame.

[admin]

Hi Roy,

thanks for that - it means that the 30s that SharpCap is waiting should be enough, so something weird is going on.

Before I bounce this over to the developers at Atik for an explanation, can you please just check that you have the very latest version of the Atik core software installed from https://www.atik-cameras.com/software-downloads/ . If you have an out-of-date version of that then it's possible that an update could help.

cheers,

Robin