SharpCap Forums

Hi All,

I was capturing data last night, and twice in the evening I noticed that the frames had stopped updating and were shown as dropped. The green exposure progress bar continued to update as usual, but the preview image never changed. Reconnecting to the camera did not resolve the issue, and I had to restart Sharpcap. The camera is an ASI585MC, connected to my Windows 11 home laptop via USB-3. I have used this configuration for a couple of months without issue.

Here is a section of the log that indicates the onset of the issue:

SharpCap.Cameras.ASI.ASICameraProxy.StartExposure()
Debug 22:19:19.016911 #36 Finished ZWO Exposure of 8519ms, gotFrame = True in bool SharpCap.Cameras.ASI.ASICameraProxy.GetFrameData(int timeout, BufferFrame frame, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
Debug 22:19:19.019144 #36 Starting ZWO Exposure of 8519ms in bool SharpCap.Cameras.ASI.ASICameraProxy.StartExposure()
Warning 22:19:28.735891 #36 Fetching still frame from ZWO camera failed with ExpFailed, exposure is 8519, timeout is 19370 in bool SharpCap.Cameras.ASI.ASICameraProxy.GetFrameData(int timeout, BufferFrame frame, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
Debug 22:19:28.736208 #36 Finished ZWO Exposure of 8519ms, gotFrame = False in bool

Looking through the Windows event logs, I did see the attached warning, but this was generated post-issue. I have attached the log as well in case there is anything more to be gleaned.

After the second SharpCap restart, all seemed to behave normally for another hour or so before I shut down for the night.

Any suggestions would be welcome!

Best,
Bill

Hi Bill,

thanks for posting the log - from the details in it, it looks like this is very similar to another issue that I am currently trying to solve (viewtopic.php?t=7618). It seems that in both cases the camera stops responding to requests for frames without any useful error information and without the camera fully stopping working (if it did that, it would disconnect from USB and that would show up in the SharpCap log).

You could try reducing the 'Turbo USB' setting, which can help improve stability. It's also worth keeping USB cable lengths (particularly USB3) to a minimum and only using good quality hubs if a hub is necessary.

I am trying to work out if choosing either 'Close Camera' and then re-opening in SharpCap, or using 'Reconnect Camera' is sufficient to get the camrea going again in these circumstances - if it is then I may be able to automate recovery. If it happens again, please give these options a try and let me know if they help.

thanks,

Robin

Thanks Robin! Reconnecting the camera did not resolve the issue the other night. I tried reconnecting all hardware as well. I will look at the Turbo USB setting. FWIW I am using an excellent USB cable, and have not previously seen dropped frames, even with SER files at 200+FPS.