Question on How Guide Logs are Saved

[Mike M]

Last night I was guiding and then without thinking physically disconnected the cables to my guide cam and mount while PHD was active and without first "disconnecting" them in PHD "Connect Equipment" window (oops, it was cold, late and I as tired...which is when stuff like this happens).

Well, today I see there is no guide log for last night's session in the folder... Is there any way to recover that data? Is it possibly stored temporarily in some other location? I was running some unguided tracking (PE) curves and for analysis and would really like to recover it.

Also, can anyone enlighten me on what are the rules for when a Guide Log file gets recorded? That is, what triggers a file to be recorded? Is it disconnecting equipment?

Thank you, this is a truly great program and asset to the amateur astronomy community.

Mike

Tucson, AZ

PS -- a suggestion for Log Viewer (I will make a separate post for this), but thought I'd mention it here: it would be great to have the ability to zoom in on a section of the graph displaced vertically from the horizontal axis. Let me see if I can explain what I mean: so you can zoom the timeline (ie, stretch the graph horizontally), and zoom to expand the graph vertically using the controls on the right or by grabbing the graph and pulling up or down, but I don't see a way to then zoom in on a part of the graph that has a large vertical displacement from the horizontal axis (ie, large error) without having to un-zoom vertically. For example, in the attached a Guide Log: starting at about 01:51 I was running unguided to evaluate the raw RA tracking smoothness and PE for a mount I'm testing. Over the course of several worm cycles, the RA deviation gets quite big, and the graph runs away from the horizontal line. I want to be able to zoom in on the parts of that RA curve that are well away from the horizontal line (have a high gross error) so as to evaluate the small changes in error. But when I zoom the graph vertically so that I can see the smaller high-freq deviations in it, the part of the graph that 'm interested in (that has large gross RA deviations) goes off the picture and I cannot see it anymore.... Does all this make any sense? It's hard to explain... It would be the ability to zoom the graph vertically, and then drag the view window up or down to see a part of the zoomed graph that is now outside the view window up or down. Thanks!

[Andy Galasso]

Mike,

The missing log file is a mystery.   PHD2 opens the log file and starts writing to it right away when it starts up, so every time you open phd2 there will immediately be a new Debug Log.

When PHD2 starts up it removes Debug Log files that are more than 30 days old based on the file modification time. I believe it is unlikely that that was the cause of the missing debug log since the log file would definitely be less than 30 days old.  Could the clock on the PC have been set 30 days forward by any chance?

Other then that, there is nothing in PHD2 that would remove the debug log.  Could there have been any other process on your PC that could have removed it?

Andy

[Andy Galasso]

Mike,

Sorry, I see you were talking about a missing Guide Log, not a missing debug log.  Guide logs are treated similarly, except that they are retained for 60 days, not 30.

Another difference is that even though the Guide Log is created immediately, it will be deleted when PHD2 exits if there was never any info written to the log.  Since you were guiding, there was definitely data being written to the guide log, so phd2 would not have removed it when it exited.

Do you have the debug log for the session?  We could look there to see if there is anything unusual indicated.

Andy

[Ray Gralak]

Hi Mike,

If you are interested in a free tool that can not only zoom in but also perform frequency analysis of your PHD2 logs please try out my free utility (PEMPro Log Viewer). It is absolutely free and I intend to keep improving it so if you have suggestions please let me know. You can download from the link below, which also includes a short video tutorial:

http://ccdware.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/401101098/m/3217021086

The latest version even has color coded output for the PHD2 log files:

http://ccdware.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/401101098/m/3217021086?r=4947065486#4947065486

Best regards

-Ray Gralak

Author of PEMPro 

[Mike M]

Andy,

I've been ensuring to stop guiding and then disconnect before closing PHD, and it had been recording the guide logs fine, but then It happened again last night that it did not record either the guide or debug log. BTW, in all cases where it does not record the guide log, it also does not record the debug log, so I have nothing to send in response to your request for that.

Now, last night the star had been lost for several hours, I went to bed and just let it continue guiding and so in the morning I got up and it was dinging away that it had lost the star and the graph of course looked like heck, but this was as I expected and planned. So I dismissed the star lost warning banner across the top, hit the stop button, then the connect button and disconnect from all, then went to my log folder and the logs were not there. So then I thought well, maybe the logs are not save until I exit the program, so I exited and still the logs were not there. I refreshed the folder and still not there.

I've checked the date / time on my laptop, all well there, I don't think that's ever been the problem.

I wonder if I have some setting in PHD wrong that is not allowing the logs to be saved? You said in your first reply that the log files are started as soon as PHD starts, but I have never seen them in the log folder until after the session (I've looked during the session and haven't seen them)... and I don't know of any process on my pc that would remove them, and if there is, it is only removing them selectively!

You mentioned that the guide log would be deleted on program exit if no data was written...I was guiding all night last night, with calibrations, drift aligns, guiding assistant. Then a session of guiding with guide output disabled to check PE (raw RA tracking), then finished with a long guiding session, all working well (until the star was lost, as I mentioned above, though I knew and planned for this to happen). Now, it has lost the star several hours before I got up, so Could it be that it got fed up with the error and stopped logging... or deleted the previous data...or is there a time / data / file size limit that may have been exceeded?

Thanks again for all your help!

Mike

[Mike M]

Hi Ray, thanks for the tip about your program, I'll check it out. I have used your PEMPro with my AP mount, good stuff!

Mike

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Mike.  This is very weird.  Just to cover the bases, you should check to be sure the files aren’t being written to a different directory.  The location can be specified by the user, done here on the ‘Global’ tab of the advanced dialog:

 

 

 

See if the location is what you think it is and also that you have write permission to that folder.  If it all looks fine, change the file location to something else and try it again right away.  Just start PHD2, poke around in a few of the windows, then exit – see if the logs are written to your new location.  Have you tried letting windows search for the files?  You can search for PHD2_GuideLog*.*

 

Good luck,

Bruce

 

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[Mike M]

Bruce, Found'em! Got the ones from last night at least by searching, as you suggested, great suggestion! I should have thought of that.

Apparently I made some file structure changes at higher levels that affected the path to the PHD folder, and then PHD must have had the good sense to create a new folder at the old path.

And I even found the one that I'd "previously lost" when I started this thread!

Great thinking Bruce... check the simple stuff first!!!

Mike

[bw_msgboard]

Good to hear, glad it was a simple solution!

 

Have fun,

Bruce

 

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From: Mike M [mailto:mi...@sargamites.net]
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 12:05 PM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Cc: mi...@sargamites.net; bw_m...@earthlink.net
Subject: Re: [open-phd-guiding] Question on How Guide Logs are Saved

 

Bruce, Found'em! Got the ones from last night at least by searching, as you suggested, great suggestion! I should have thought of that.