Latest SharpCap (4.1) crashes on any connection

[mhedenus]

Hi *,

If I try to connecto to ANY of my cameras SharpCap simply shuts down: the window disappears, no message.

It is reproducible with

SharpCapInstall-4.1.11680.0
SharpCapInstall-4.1.11680.0-64bit
on Windows 10 Home 22H2 Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19053.1000.0

My old 3.2. 32Bit version still works fine.

What shall I do?

Michael
Regensburg (Germany)

[admin]

Hi,

please can you try following the instructions in this post to create a crash dump of the problem and then send the dump to me.

viewtopic.php?p=39396#p39396

If you fail to get a crash dump then any output from the procdump tool may be interesting too.

cheers,

Robin

[mhedenus]

Hi,

I have installed the latest version SharpCapInstall-4.1.11711.0-64bit.exe.

With this version my ToupcamAstro (DSPro2600c) works but my old QHY5PII-C leads to a crash.

I created a crashdump and put it here:

https://hedenus.de/astro/sharpcap/Sharp ... 37.dmp.zip

Greetings

Michael

[admin]

Hi Michael,

thanks for the crash dump - it's an odd one as there is relatively little info in it, and the code seems to be crashing inside part of windows code with an unexpected error (as if a debugging break point has been hit - error 80000003). Looking around for similar errors on the web, there isn't much, but some ideas do come up...

* Check that your drivers are up-to-date. Particularly the ones for the QHY camera that is causing issues and the graphics card drivers
* Consider if antivirus software may be causing issues - some antivirus software can be quite intrusive and try to stop (or pause) other programs from doing certain things. Sometimes these attempts can cause very odd crashes. In particular, 'freemium' antivirus software that is initially free and wants you to buy the paid version can be a problem, since such software tends to be quite intrusive to convince you of how much work it is doing to protect you.
* Try putting SharpCap into software rendering mode (first page of options - turn off the hardware accelerated option)
* Try using the 32 bit version rather than the 64 bit version of SharpCap.

If none of that helps then we may have to do a full process dump which will create a much larger dump file rather than the slimmed down 'mini dump' we have done so far.

thanks,

Robin

[mhedenus]

Hi,

nothing helps. I installed latest drivers (which are quite old and will not be updated, I guess), used the software rendering mode, but the QHY camera does not work, neither with the 32 nor the 64 bit version. How do I create the full crash report?

What changed? It used to work! If it does not work anymore I have either to use the old version or to quit SharpCap. Sorry to say that.

Cheers,
Michael

[admin]

Hi,

it's entirely possible that the thing that has changed is the QHY SDK - this is code provided by QHY that SharpCap installs. From time to time QHY update it to add support for new features, new cameras and to fix bugs. So, SharpCap 4.1 will be using a much newer version than 4.0, and 4.0 newer than 3.2 nd so on... It's quite possible that the latest updates are *causing* the problem you are seeing. Unfortunately, I can't change SharpCap back to using an older version of that code (it would stop new model cameras from working at all), and it is QHY who have to fix any issues in the code.

You can create a full dump by adding the extra '-ma' parameter to the procdump command line, but looking at the dump you previously sent again, it's odd that there is no error recorded in it - almost like the application is exiting cleanly when starting the camera rather than as a result of an error.

Are you abled to test on another PC to see if the same happens there or if it is something to do with the PC you are using?

thanks,

Robin

[Astrograph]

Hi, I'm also having a similar problem with v4.1.11754.0. As soon as I try to connect to my camera it bombs out a "ScreenCap.dll error" dialog and doesn't allow me to send a dump. If I run the program with /dump, I don't get a dump file on my desktop.

Thanks.

[admin]

Sorry, silly mistake in the latest version - it needs a new DLL installed and I didn't notice, so the new DLL is not in the installer.

Working on a fix now.

cheers,

Robin

[mhedenus]

Dear Robin,

sorry - it still does not work. I tried SharpCapInstall-4.1.11757.0.exe (32 bit) but it crashed. I created a full crash dump:

https://www.hedenus.de/astro/sharpcap/S ... 58.dmp.zip

Also, I do not have a second computer to test on.

PS: latest version of N.I.N.A also crashes without error message, the QHY software EZplanetary works.

Greetings

Michael

[admin]

Hi Michael,

from your crash dump, it looks like the error may be occurring in the QHY SDK software that is part of SharpCap (and is included in NINA too). This is a separate issue to the one fixed in 4.1.11757 that was affecting the other people above.

Do you have the latest drivers from the QHY all-in-one installed? Does the issue happen when opening SharpCap (may be related to detecting QHY cameras) or when opening a camera? If opening a camera, does it happen for non-QHY cameras (like the SharpCap test cameras).

thanks,

Robin