PHD2 crashing Windows 11

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Richard Sauerbrun

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Sep 6, 2022, 11:13:54 PM9/6/22
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Hello group,

I have been having serious trouble with PHD2 on my Windows 11 platform After connecting my mount (a Celestron AVX via the CPWI interface using WiFi to a SkyPortal on the mount) and my ZWO ASI120mm guide camera all seems OK for a while. But when I try and use the Guide Assistant, after about 3-4 minutes of collecting data, ALL the apps on the W11 PC crash and the PC reboots.

I have cleaned up all the drivers for the mount and the camera and am running the latest build of all my apps. Basically, all that was running when the reboot occurred is my Pegasus PowerBox Advance app (provides power and USB connectivity), the Celestron CPWI mount control app, and PHD2.

I am attaching the PHD2 log file from tonight's session.

Any suggestions will be great appreciated,

Richard
PHD2_DebugLog_2022-09-06_181202.txt

Richard Sauerbrun

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Sep 6, 2022, 11:22:50 PM9/6/22
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I just checked the log file and saw this ...

Error thrown from C:\cygwin\home\agalasso\projects\phd2\myframe_events.cpp:608->Error reported moving

My PC does not have a C:\cygwin\home\agalasso\projects\phd2\ directory

is this required to run PHD2?

Richard Sauerbrun

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Sep 6, 2022, 11:24:08 PM9/6/22
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I am running 2.6.11 dev2 of PHD2 on 64bit Windows 11

Brian Valente

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Sep 6, 2022, 11:24:57 PM9/6/22
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Hi Richard

no - that is referencing an internal library function. 

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bw_m...@earthlink.net

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Sep 7, 2022, 12:02:43 AM9/7/22
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It’s nearly impossible for an application like PHD2 to cause crashes like this.  These kinds of problems originate at lower levels of the system, notably device drivers and hardware components.  In particular, any number of USB-related problems can do it.  The first thing I would do is be sure that you have disabled power-conservation features in Windows that allow it to disable USB ports.  Then I would start looking hard at this Pegasus gizmo and start testing it aggressively.  With USB, you have to pay attention to both bandpass and connectivity and power delivery to the various USB devices.  Here’s an updated trouble-shooting guide you can follow – fortunately you should be able to do most of it in the daytime.  The debug log you posted is normal and shows that PHD2 terminated immediately after handling an exposure with the guide camera.

 

https://openphdguiding.org/man-dev/Trouble_shooting.htm#Problems-_Camera_Timeouts

 

Although the trouble-shooting section talks about timeout conditions, the testing process should also expose whatever is causing your more severe problems.  As I say, I suspect the power management settings because those are enabled by default in Windows 10 and probably 11 (Step 5 in the trouble-shooting guide).  If you can duplicate the problem, you may have to start dropping USB-connected devices one at a time to find it.

 

Good luck,

Bruce

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Richard Sauerbrun

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Sep 7, 2022, 12:24:33 AM9/7/22
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Thank you, Bruce ... I will scour the troubleshooting.

In defense of the Pegasus device, I have been using it for over a year and it works beautifully ... never a glitch. It allows me to organize all my 12V power and USB connections and completely organize my cables. The only thing that is new to this setup is the WiFi connection to the AVX mount. I have never been able to get that to work with earlier releases of CPWI and had to run a USB cable to the hand controller. But their latest release has solved that issue. So, in fact, I am running one less USB connection on the power box than I had been for the last year with no crashes. Of course, I do have the new W11 updates that MS always suggests we install.

These crashes must have something to do with mount control, as PHD2 only crashes the system when it is sending commands to the mount. It can sit there for hours looping images with no errors. But once it starts a calibration run, the guide assistant, or a normal guiding run, it crashes after 3-5 minutes.

Richard

Brian Valente

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Sep 7, 2022, 12:31:02 AM9/7/22
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>>> The only thing that is new to this setup is the WiFi connection to the AVX mount.

Richard can you explain this a bit more? are you connecting from your computer to your mount via wifi? 

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bw_m...@earthlink.net

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Sep 7, 2022, 1:48:29 AM9/7/22
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Hi Richard.  I wasn’t trying to bad-mouth the Pegasus, I don’t really know anything about it.  I thought your message implied that the Pegasus was a new addition to the mix, and new changes are always the first place to look.  But I think your characterization of the problem is off the mark to some extent.  In the log you sent, PHD2 was in the middle of a GA run, so it wasn’t sending commands to the mount at all.  Not-at-all – that’s the point of the Guiding Assistant. But If there’s a new windows device driver associated with your mount connection, that’s definitely a possible point of failure.  Once you verify that Windows isn’t disabling USB ports on you, you can take a different approach to the daytime testing.  You can introduce guiding into the mix using this tool:

 

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Amy5FkXK3OuQgnKd1-7Er-5P3Iad?e=o3FH4G

 

Instructions are included in the folder.  So you can get all the cameras looping and the USB ports hot and let things run for a while.  Then you can start the MountExerciser and have it start sending guide commands.  If that triggers the failure, you’ll know the problem lies with the mount connection and most probably the wireless device driver.  I do think you ought to be able to isolate the source of the problem if you work at this systematically.  All of that said, I also think the Windows power conservation stuff is the first place to look.

Richard Sauerbrun

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Sep 7, 2022, 9:02:27 AM9/7/22
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Thank you both for your excellent replies and suggestions ...

As for the question on the mount connection ... yes, the W11 PC is connected to my home WiFi ... the AVX mount's SkyPortal accessory is also connected to my home Wi-Fi (Direct Connect Mode). The CPWI app on the PC offers two ways to connect to the AVX ... USB cable to the hand controller, or Wi-Fi. Up until this latest release of CPWI there were problems staying connected to the Wi-Fi and I always used USB. Now, I can connect to the mount via Wi-Fi and perform various goto functions and also control the motor focuser. This works well with no errors or disconnects for as long as I use it. However, each time I add PHD2 and guiding to the mix, the W11 PC crashes all the apps and reboots.

I am going to give some effort today to try the daytime trouble shooting with the tool mentioned by Bruce. I will let you know the result.

Ron sieloff

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Sep 7, 2022, 10:17:27 AM9/7/22
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I dont know if this helps or not, but i suddenly started having the same issues after i updated to the latest version of phd2. However, when i did the upgrade, it informed me that the ascom drivers need updating, which i subsequently did. I am guessing that it has something to do with the upgraded ascom drivers. Your thoughts?

Its weird because nothing changed in the equipment set up. Sometimes the problem will happen soon into the looping start up. I close and restart and sometimes it disconnects again and sometimes it runs fine for hours. I havent been able to clearly find a step or sequence that triggers the problem. 

Hope this added info helps with your search for answers. 

Ron

On Sep 7, 2022, at 9:02 AM, Richard Sauerbrun <ras...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you both for your excellent replies and suggestions ...

bw_m...@earthlink.net

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Sep 7, 2022, 11:21:00 AM9/7/22
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Hi Ron.  Neither PHD2 nor the PHD2 installer will tell you to upgrade ASCOM drivers.  Whatever message you saw came from some other app.  You refer to “disconnects” which sounds like a different problem from the topic of this thread which is system-wide crashes.  I can’t emphasize enough that you must disable the USB power disabling functions in Windows.  Both Windows 10 and 11 enable this behavior by default and are quite capable of re-enabling it as part of an update.  In any case, you should follow the same procedure I outlined for Richard because your problem may be entirely different from his.  Finding the source of these problems usually requires time-consuming, systematic testing and isolation, but they’re not going to resolve themselves.

 

Bruce

Ron sieloff

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Sep 7, 2022, 12:04:20 PM9/7/22
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Ok. Thanks. I did just now go in and shut off power disables that got turned back on. Possibly as you suggest, via one of the Windows updates. 

Will let you know if that was the magic solution. I certainly makes sense. 

Thanks again.  Ron. 

On Sep 7, 2022, at 11:21 AM, bw_m...@earthlink.net wrote:



Richard Sauerbrun

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Sep 7, 2022, 6:46:11 PM9/7/22
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Hello Group,

Well, this afternoon I disabled the USB power saving feature in Windows 11 ... then ran all the suggested tests, including the PHD2 simulator. No errors or crashes after a little over an hour. Next clear night I will try the real thing and see if that USB setting has fixed everything.

Thanks for the support ...

Richard

bw_m...@earthlink.net

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Sep 7, 2022, 10:26:21 PM9/7/22
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Thanks, Richard.  Please let us know when you think you’ve had enough burn time with the gear to be confident of the solution.

 

Regards,

Richard Sauerbrun

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Sep 8, 2022, 3:00:04 PM9/8/22
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Hello Group

Today I used the following steps to set up a full daytime test:
  • Started up the Pegasus Powerbox app, turned on power to all devices and activated all USB connections
  • Started the Celestron CPWI app and connected to the AVX mount's SkyPortal via Wi-Fi
  • Started the Mount Exerciser app using the Uni-Directional Guiding mode to simulate pulse guiding
  • Started PHD2 and connected to the ASI120mm guide camera and the AVX mount (via CPWI ASCOM)
  • Started looping 2s exposures in PHD2 with the guide camera
  • Started SharpCap, connected to the ASI294MC Pro imaging camera, and started looping 200ms exposures
I let this process run for over 60 minutes ... and nothing bad happened.

When I get a clear night, I will run everything for real ... and let you know.

Richard Sauerbrun

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Sep 18, 2022, 10:07:40 AM9/18/22
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Hello Group,

Sorry it took so long to complete my first "real" test after using the Mount Exerciser, but here goes. I repeated the test above, however, this time it was outside at night which used the full PHD2 app to perform the guiding. Sadly, the same problem surfaced. After about 10 minutes, PHD2 crashed and took down all my other apps and Windows 11 with it.

After a reboot, I once again dug into the driver issue to make sure I had everything updated and correct. I verified that I have the latest ASCOM platform, the latest ZWO native camera drivers, the latest mount drivers (ASCOM), and the latest version of all my software apps (Pegasus Power Box Advanced, CPWI, PHD2, NINA or SharpCap). All of the USB controllers were configured in Windows 11 to disable the power management function.

After this failure, I tried switching to a different mount and mount control app. I used my new Sky Watcher GTi with the SynScan Pro app for Windows. This uses the Sky Watcher ASCOM driver for mount control. All the other software and drivers were the same as the test with the Celestron AVX mount.

As soon as PHD2 starts guiding, the entire system crashes. After another reboot, this time I loaded everything except PHD2, and ran an unguided session. Everything worked fine and I was able to capture 240 60s exposures with no errors or crashes.

Please help ... I really need the assistance of the guiding so my longer exposures stay sharp!

Richard

bw_m...@earthlink.net

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Sep 18, 2022, 3:55:38 PM9/18/22
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Maybe this points us in the direction of whatever serial-USB driver you’re using to connect to the mount.  Another experiment – temporary only – would be to create a new PHD2 profile and choose “on-camera” for the mount.  Then you would connect a guide cable from the ZWO guide camera to the guide port on the Celestron mount.  That will eliminate the USB-serial driver from the mix.  If you try to image this way, you will need to do a new PHD2 calibration each time you slew the scope which is why this is just a temporary testing configuration.  For this most recent crash, you can go into the Windows event log viewer and see if you can find an entry that is related to the crash.  If you find one, go ahead and forward that info as well.  But it’s not PHD2 that’s doing any of this, it’s something running at a lower level in the system.

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