Issue with PHD2 freezing when using QHY5iii178 or 174 Cameras
mahaffm
I’m not sure if this is a PHD2, SGPro or QHY bug, of if it’s a driver issue, or the person behind the keyboard problem. Let me see if I can quickly explain.
My setup is: OAG with Guide Camera = QHY5III178 Bin=2. PHD2.6.3dev7. I use SGPro. In SGPro I have my Imaging camera, ASI071, nSTEP Focuser ASOM (COM3), Celestron Mount ASCOM (COM5), Alnitak Flat box (Homemade with Ardinuo UNO controller) COM7. No rotator, NexRemote with virtual port set to COM15,
I recently switched over from a GuideScope setup using the StarShooter autoguider to the OAG setup with the QHY5III178 camera.
OK here’s the problem:
1. I open SGPro and load in my sequence. (BTW I’ve been using SGPro to almost 2 years) and connect in the equipment. All of the equipment connects without any issue
2. I open PHD2 and connect the Camera (QHY5III178 Bin 2), and the Celestron Mount.
3. The Camera and Mount connects.
Now this is where it gets ugly: I start looping in PHD2 and nothing happens, appears to be stuck waiting for something. However if I go to SGPro and disconnect either the nSTEP Focuser or the Alnitak Flat panel within SGPro, PHD2 begins looping and images start to come in. If I have both NSTEP Forcuser and the Alnitak flat panel connected in SGPro the Looping in PHD2 freezes until I disconnect either the focuser or the flat panel in SGPro.
I decided to change out the QHY Camera in PHD2 to the old StarShooter and everything works perfectly. So it appears to be something in PHD2 when the QHY5III178 camera is connected and when the focuser and flat panel are connected in SGPro. I don’t understand how the three can possibly be related.
The above equipment is my field equipment. I also have an observatory and the setup is almost identical. The only difference is for the observatory for the OAG I use the QHY5III174 as my guide camera with a binning set to 1 and everything works perfectly with my observatory setup.
So I decided to remove the QHY5III174 from my observatory setup and test it with this setup but the same issue persists.
Attached is the PHD2 log as well as the SGPro log. Hope someone can figure this one out because I can’t. I reinstalled the OS and all of the needed software twice just to make sure everything is staring from a clean PC. I even moved from Windows 7 to Window 10.
Thanks,
Mark
bw_msgboard
Hi Mark. These sorts of weird behaviors are usually caused by low level device interfaces, not the sort of thing apps like PHD2 or SGP can do anything about. Based on your description, my guess is that your laptop is not delivering the necessary power over the USB system to operate all the devices concurrently. Devices like guide cameras often demand the maximum power that’s allowed by the USB spec and will fail in unpredictable ways if they don’t get it. At the same time, laptops often cut corners in this area. The easiest thing would probably be to try a powered USB hub assuming you have an available power source for your field setup. If you can’t do that, you may need to fiddle around with how the various devices are spread across the USB buses in your computer, assuming there is more than one. You’ll also need to be sure the USB ports aren’t subject to any Windows-managed shutdowns for power conservation.
Good luck
Bruce
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Brian Valente
Just a guess
Also with the QHY cameras I think you want to be on the latest dev build of PHD2
Thanks
Brian
Brian Valente
Brianvalentephotography.com
mahaffm
Mark
bw_msgboard
Hi Mark. It’s a bit hard to interpret what’s in the PHD2 debug file. This is a large, fairly complicated text file and without knowing exactly what you did and when you did it, it’s hard to find what you’re talking about. During this session you were using 500ms exposure times and the camera exposures seem to be mostly completing on-time. But at 18:02:34, an exposure request was made and then nothing at all happened until 18:02:57, almost 20 seconds later. There are no errors returned and no timeouts triggered, so I don’t know what happened. Normally, I would have expected to see a 15-sec timeout in this situation. I presume you unplugged one of the other USB devices at this point and everything started running again. In any case, I can’t conceive of anything that PHD2 could do to cause this behavior. It’s almost like one of the devices – perhaps the focuser or flat-panel display – is causing a system-wide problem of some sort.
If you need to map how the USB ports on your laptop are connected to the underlying USB bus infrastructure, you can try using the Microsoft USBView tool:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/usbview
When I mentioned using a powered hub, I was talking about a hub that is connected to an AC power supply, not something that gets its power from the computer. Don’t know if that’s what you have. Andy is much more familiar with the QHY cameras than I am, he may be able to make other suggestions.
Good luck,
mahaffm
bw_msgboard
Hi Mark, see below.
From: mahaffm
[mailto:bigiri...@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2017
3:21 PM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Cc: bigiri...@gmail.com; bw_m...@earthlink.net
Subject: Re: [open-phd-guiding]
Issue with PHD2 freezing when using QHY5iii178 or 174 Cameras
Bruce,
Thanks for the link to the Microsoft USBView Tool. I'll take a look to see if this might help.
As for the USB powered Hub, yes I do run that off of AC power. I use a generator when I go out.
As for what you were seeing in the log, the exposure request was made and then nothing we me disconnecting the Alnitak Flat box in SPG. I found PHD2 would simply hang until I disconnected either the Flat Box or focuser in SGPro then PHD2 would pick up like nothing happened. During testing I was looping the guide camera every 0.6 seconds. I typically guide with somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 seconds. depending on where in the sky I am imaging.
I'll see if I can break out just the sections showing the looping and hangs and map those to the SGPro log so maybe you can see bettter how the two are linked.
I don’t think this is going to help inasmuch as I did find one of the mystery delays. There’s nothing at all in the log during that 20-sec interval, which is very unusual. PHD2 is multi-threaded so there is activity even when we’re waiting for an exposure to complete. I think, for whatever reason, PHD2 was not getting any CPU cycles at all – time was simply suspended. But even if we had registered a timeout condition, that wouldn’t tell us anything about the underlying cause. I think you’re stuck with having to debug the Windows laptop environment. When the hang occurs, you might trying looking in the Windows task manager (“all processes”) to see what sort of resources are being consumed and by which processes.
in the meantime I continue to work on the issue. I might just end up with a purchase of a new PC for the field. I hate doing that before I understand the root cause.
I agree, that can be an expensive crap-shoot.
Good luck,
Bruce
bw_msgboard
Hi Mark, one other comment. Not all USB hubs have the same specs. You want to use one that is specified to deliver the full USB 2.0 500mA to each of the devices that are connected. And of course, some USB 3.0 hubs have problems supporting demanding USB 2.0 devices despite the claim of backward compatibility.
Bruce
mahaffm
Mark