QHY5 camera and PHD2 - don't play togther anymore

[Wayne Stronach]

So PHD2 and my QHY5II-C camera were working really well, then suddenly PHD2 couldn't communicate with the camera - no images.  I tried different cables, different ports, removing and reinstalling drivers and PHD2 (both stable and development versions) and nothing worked.  The QHY5II-C had always been a little random with Sharpcap so I decided it must be the camera and brought a QHY5III178.  Same problem - PHD2 connects but then crashes or fails to get anything from the camera.  It also tips over from time to time - e.g. trying to take bad pixel maps, it just suddenly closes.  I don't know where to go next, so any help would be greatly apprecriated.  regards  Wayne

[bw_msgboard]

https://openphdguiding.org/getting-help/

 

 

You also need to be sure you’re running the latest camera drivers.  

 

Bruce

 

---

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open PHD Guiding" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to open-phd-guidi...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/ee1b6585-b88a-436f-8aec-3eb3c5049b6dn%40googlegroups.com.

[Wayne Stronach]

Thanks Bruce, yes I downloaded the latest drivers and I have tried two different cameras with different drivers and PHD2 won't connect to either.  Sharpcap on the other hand works with both.  regards  Wayne

[bw_msgboard]

We can’t help you if you don’t send the logs.  That’s what the link is for.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/52eec463-7332-4c7d-8db5-e541c0391429n%40googlegroups.com.

[Wayne Stronach]

https://openphdguiding.org/logs/dl/PHD2_logs_JrDV.zip

Here are the logs from recent unsuccesful sessions and an older one (Feb 21) from a successful session

[bw_msgboard]

Ok, let’s see if we can put together a reasonable picture of your problems.  Here’s what it looks like to me:

 

1. On 2/18 (not 2/21), you ran all night without any camera problems.  You were using PHD2 2.6.9dev4 and the native QHY camera driver connected to a QHY5PII-c camera
2. On 3/13, 3 weeks later, you connected to the same camera in the same way,  You then started having camera timeout problems – nothing mysterious that I can see, the alert messages should have given you a good place to start trouble-shooting. You got the same intermittent timeout problems during both daytime and nighttime use
3. On 3/16, you started flailing around with different PHD2 releases and different QHY camera drivers – ASCOM instead of the native driver.  So this introduced new software variables into a situation that seems most likely to be a USB-related hardware problem.

 

I think you should go back to the software configuration you had on 2/18 – which was working fine – and start trouble-shooting from there.  Use the native QHY driver, not the ASCOM version. That software didn’t change on its own during your 3-week layoff, but something in your hardware environment probably did.  The trouble-shooting guide in the PHD2 manual – Trouble-shooting/Camera timeouts – is the best help we can give you.  It’s going to be important to work through both sides of the problem – both the data transfer part and the camera power part.

 

The fact that the cameras work with SharpCap tells you only one useful thing: the cameras aren’t dead, they can take pictures.  Apps like SharpCap interact with the camera in a completely different way than PHD2 – they basically start a video stream, let it run for as long as you like, then stop it.  PHD2 needs to take single exposures with the camera, and that involves much more back-and-forth control traffic with the camera – and those round-trip communications are more prone to timing and hardware-related problems in the USB system.

 

Hope you can track it down quickly,

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/a476bb8c-a80f-4659-8d65-7da48cc2cf40n%40googlegroups.com.

[Wayne Stronach]

Thanks Bruce, I have spend about 8 hours trying different cables, USB ports, powered hubs,  drivers etc without any signs that PHD2 is doing anything -   I brought a new camera as I ended up thinking that the QHY5II-c was faultly but get the same problem with a QHY5III178 which uses USB 3.0 so completely different hardware.    I have gone back to where I started (as you suggest)  and most of the time try the QHY native driver (rather than ASCOM) but still no luck - While nothing had changed in my hardware, in the three week layoff period, windows was still undating itself and I wonder whether windows is somehow limiting access to the camera. I will try a new computer next - PHD2 was easy to setup the first time.

[bw_msgboard]

What do you mean “without any signs that PHD2 is doing anything”.  This makes no sense.  It either connects to the camera or it doesn’t.  If it doesn’t, it tells you that.  When you start looping, it either gets camera frames within the expected time period or it doesn’t.  When it doesn’t, it tells you that unless you’ve disabled the alerts.  If it says ‘looping’, it’s getting camera frames. You have to be very careful and systematic when you work through these tests or you’ll just end up chasing your tail.  You can open a PHD2 debug log file after a test and search for ‘alert’ to see if problems were recorded.

 

Bruce

 

---

From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Wayne Stronach
Sent: Monday, March 15, 2021 8:23 PM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Subject: Re: [open-phd-guiding] QHY5 camera and PHD2 - don't play togther anymore

 

Thanks Bruce, I have spend about 8 hours trying different cables, USB ports, powered hubs,  drivers etc without any signs that PHD2 is doing anything -   I brought a new camera as I ended up thinking that the QHY5II-c was faultly but get the same problem with a QHY5III178 which uses USB 3.0 so completely different hardware.    I have gone back to where I started (as you suggest)  and most of the time try the QHY native driver (rather than ASCOM) but still no luck - While nothing had changed in my hardware, in the three week layoff period, windows was still undating itself and I wonder whether windows is somehow limiting access to the camera. I will try a new computer next - PHD2 was easy to setup the first time.

On Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 16:03:06 UTC+13 bw_m...@earthlink.net wrote:

Ok, let’s see if we can put together a reasonable picture of your problems.  Here’s what it looks like to me:

 

1.      On 2/18 (not 2/21), you ran all night without any camera problems.  You were using PHD2 2.6.9dev4 and the native QHY camera driver connected to a QHY5PII-c camera

2.      On 3/13, 3 weeks later, you connected to the same camera in the same way,  You then started having camera timeout problems – nothing mysterious that I can see, the alert messages should have given you a good place to start trouble-shooting. You got the same intermittent timeout problems during both daytime and nighttime use

3.      On 3/16, you started flailing around with different PHD2 releases and different QHY camera drivers – ASCOM instead of the native driver.  So this introduced new software variables into a situation that seems most likely to be a USB-related hardware problem.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/b8631af6-1d51-4db9-9730-a1c51a7545d7n%40googlegroups.com.

[Wayne Stronach]

This is what the log looks like with native QHY camera, cables and setup exactly as per original setup when it was working:

6:29:57.437 00.109 7628 Loaded 3775 defects

16:29:57.437 00.000 7628 Status Line: Defect map loaded

16:30:03.875 06.438 7628 GetInt("/profile/2/camera/dmap_exptime", 15) returns 5

16:30:03.875 00.000 7628 GetInt("/profile/2/camera/dmap_num_frames", 25) returns 25

16:30:03.891 00.016 7628 GetString("/profile/2/camera/darks_note", "") returns ""

16:30:12.662 08.771 7628 Capture dark frame 1/25 exp=15000

16:30:12.682 00.020 7628 QHY set gain 20 (0..51 incr 1)

Then PHD2 locks - its says it connected to the camera but when trying to take a image nothing whatsever happens - you can leave for 10 seconds or 10 hours it just does nothing, no alerts, no logs, no messages, in the end I have to terminate the programme.  This is why I have been 'flailing about' because there is nothing whatsoever to give  a clue to whats going on, except that it not working ...

[Wayne Stronach]

So the plot thickens - the problems seem to be related to the use of Remote Desktop Connection - When I put a keyboard and monitor on the NUC it works well, but it won't work via RDP?  

[Patrick Chevalley]

Look at USB power save options, the mouse/keyboard may prevent Windows to cut the USB power.

[bw_msgboard]

Excellent suggestion!  That’s why we include this in the trouble-shooting steps:

 

Hope you’ve found a solution…

 

Bruce

---

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/2b963e54-aa3d-4cca-bbb5-8417c340b99fn%40googlegroups.com.

[Wayne Stronach]

Thanks Bruce - actually it says "other things you can try..." after a list of things you should work on first.   Everything was working and I hadn't made any changes to the system aside from normal updates (and perhaps a different USB cable), so I was and still am confused as to why it well from working 100% to hanging and crashing.  Possibly one of the updates e.g. bios changed the way the USB ports handled power conservation.    

[bw_msgboard]

If you’re running Windows 10, it’s entirely possible an update decided to “help you out” with power management.  Those aren’t BIOS changes, they are higher-level settings in Windows.  You can open the Device Manager and navigate to the ‘USB Root Hub” entries.  Right click on each one and look at the ‘Power Management’ tab – you will probably find they can be turned off by Windows to save power.  Or you can come at it another way – go into Settings/Hardware and Sound/Power Options/Edit Plan Settings/USB settings/USB selective suspend setting.  The default value there is to allow selective suspension even if you’re running on AC power.  Any way you slice it, you don’t want these ports being disabled.

 

My approach with Windows 10 on my astronomy laptop is to control exactly when the updates are going to be done – for example, every 30 days at noon.  The laptop isn’t used for general surfing, only for imaging, so the security exposure is minimal and I don’t have anything on the system that’s sensitive.  Once an update is done, I march through a list of known areas to make sure the update hasn’t stepped on something.  It’s annoying but it’s better than getting the kind of surprise that may have caused your problems.

 

Hope you’ve gotten this problem behind you for now assuming it has been correctly identified.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/743f7916-87b5-4c0f-92eb-d32c618e9b24n%40googlegroups.com.

[Wayne Stronach]

Thanks Bruce, yes I have disabled the USB power saving using the device manager and PHD2 is talking to the camera and getting images 100%.  Now I just need a clear night :-) Your approach on updates is sensible, I thought that windows 10 only allowed me to delay updates 7 days, but will see if I can change that to manual updates only so that I can  control when they occur.  Up until the point where things went wrong, I found PHD2 very easy to install, setup and use, perhaps that's why it was such a  struggle when it went wrong, I hadn't really learnt much about it as it just worked :-) 

[Dale Ghent]

Hi Wayne,

You might want to ensure that USB Selective Suspend is turned off:

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/usb-selective-suspend-enable-disable

/dale

> On Mar 16, 2021, at 16:36, Wayne Stronach <waynes...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks Bruce - actually it says "other things you can try..." after a list of things you should work on first. Everything was working and I hadn't made any changes to the system aside from normal updates (and perhaps a different USB cable), so I was and still am confused as to why it well from working 100% to hanging and crashing. Possibly one of the updates e.g. bios changed the way the USB ports handled power conservation.
>
> On Wednesday, 17 March 2021 at 04:31:41 UTC+13 bw_m...@earthlink.net wrote:
> Excellent suggestion! That’s why we include this in the trouble-shooting steps:
>
>
>
>
>

> Hope you’ve found a solution…
>
>
>
> Bruce
>

> From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Patrick Chevalley
> Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2021 1:04 AM
> To: Open PHD Guiding
> Subject: Re: [open-phd-guiding] QHY5 camera and PHD2 - don't play togther anymore
>
>
>
> Look at USB power save options, the mouse/keyboard may prevent Windows to cut the USB power.
>
> Le mardi 16 mars 2021 à 08:48:35 UTC+1, waynes...@gmail.com a écrit :
>
> So the plot thickens - the problems seem to be related to the use of Remote Desktop Connection - When I put a keyboard and monitor on the NUC it works well, but it won't work via RDP?
>
> On Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 19:23:14 UTC+13 Wayne Stronach wrote:
>
> This is what the log looks like with native QHY camera, cables and setup exactly as per original setup when it was working:
>
>
>
> 6:29:57.437 00.109 7628 Loaded 3775 defects
>
> 16:29:57.437 00.000 7628 Status Line: Defect map loaded
>
> 16:30:03.875 06.438 7628 GetInt("/profile/2/camera/dmap_exptime", 15) returns 5
>
> 16:30:03.875 00.000 7628 GetInt("/profile/2/camera/dmap_num_frames", 25) returns 25
>
> 16:30:03.891 00.016 7628 GetString("/profile/2/camera/darks_note", "") returns ""
>
> 16:30:12.662 08.771 7628 Capture dark frame 1/25 exp=15000
>
> 16:30:12.682 00.020 7628 QHY set gain 20 (0..51 incr 1)
>
>
>
> Then PHD2 locks - its says it connected to the camera but when trying to take a image nothing whatsever happens - you can leave for 10 seconds or 10 hours it just does nothing, no alerts, no logs, no messages, in the end I have to terminate the programme. This is why I have been 'flailing about' because there is nothing whatsoever to give a clue to whats going on, except that it not working ...
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 17:54:19 UTC+13 bw_m...@earthlink.net wrote:
>
> What do you mean “without any signs that PHD2 is doing anything”. This makes no sense. It either connects to the camera or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, it tells you that. When you start looping, it either gets camera frames within the expected time period or it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, it tells you that unless you’ve disabled the alerts. If it says ‘looping’, it’s getting camera frames. You have to be very careful and systematic when you work through these tests or you’ll just end up chasing your tail. You can open a PHD2 debug log file after a test and search for ‘alert’ to see if problems were recorded.
>
>
>
> Bruce
>
>
>

> From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Wayne Stronach
> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2021 8:23 PM
> To: Open PHD Guiding
> Subject: Re: [open-phd-guiding] QHY5 camera and PHD2 - don't play togther anymore
>
>
>
> Thanks Bruce, I have spend about 8 hours trying different cables, USB ports, powered hubs, drivers etc without any signs that PHD2 is doing anything - I brought a new camera as I ended up thinking that the QHY5II-c was faultly but get the same problem with a QHY5III178 which uses USB 3.0 so completely different hardware. I have gone back to where I started (as you suggest) and most of the time try the QHY native driver (rather than ASCOM) but still no luck - While nothing had changed in my hardware, in the three week layoff period, windows was still undating itself and I wonder whether windows is somehow limiting access to the camera. I will try a new computer next - PHD2 was easy to setup the first time.
>
> On Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 16:03:06 UTC+13 bw_m...@earthlink.net wrote:
>
> Ok, let’s see if we can put together a reasonable picture of your problems. Here’s what it looks like to me:
>
>
>
> 1. On 2/18 (not 2/21), you ran all night without any camera problems. You were using PHD2 2.6.9dev4 and the native QHY camera driver connected to a QHY5PII-c camera
>
> 2. On 3/13, 3 weeks later, you connected to the same camera in the same way, You then started having camera timeout problems – nothing mysterious that I can see, the alert messages should have given you a good place to start trouble-shooting. You got the same intermittent timeout problems during both daytime and nighttime use
>
> 3. On 3/16, you started flailing around with different PHD2 releases and different QHY camera drivers – ASCOM instead of the native driver. So this introduced new software variables into a situation that seems most likely to be a USB-related hardware problem.
>
>
>
> I think you should go back to the software configuration you had on 2/18 – which was working fine – and start trouble-shooting from there. Use the native QHY driver, not the ASCOM version. That software didn’t change on its own during your 3-week layoff, but something in your hardware environment probably did. The trouble-shooting guide in the PHD2 manual – Trouble-shooting/Camera timeouts – is the best help we can give you. It’s going to be important to work through both sides of the problem – both the data transfer part and the camera power part.
>
>
>
> The fact that the cameras work with SharpCap tells you only one useful thing: the cameras aren’t dead, they can take pictures. Apps like SharpCap interact with the camera in a completely different way than PHD2 – they basically start a video stream, let it run for as long as you like, then stop it. PHD2 needs to take single exposures with the camera, and that involves much more back-and-forth control traffic with the camera – and those round-trip communications are more prone to timing and hardware-related problems in the USB system.
>
>
>
> Hope you can track it down quickly,
>
> Bruce
>
>
>

> From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Wayne Stronach
> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2021 7:27 PM
> To: Open PHD Guiding
> Subject: Re: [open-phd-guiding] QHY5 camera and PHD2 - don't play togther anymore
>
>
>
> https://openphdguiding.org/logs/dl/PHD2_logs_JrDV.zip
>
>
>
> Here are the logs from recent unsuccesful sessions and an older one (Feb 21) from a successful session
>
> On Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 15:19:10 UTC+13 bw_m...@earthlink.net wrote:
>
> We can’t help you if you don’t send the logs. That’s what the link is for.
>
>
>

> From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Wayne Stronach
> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2021 7:13 PM
> To: Open PHD Guiding
> Subject: Re: [open-phd-guiding] QHY5 camera and PHD2 - don't play togther anymore
>
>
>
> Thanks Bruce, yes I downloaded the latest drivers and I have tried two different cameras with different drivers and PHD2 won't connect to either. Sharpcap on the other hand works with both. regards Wayne
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 14:58:08 UTC+13 bw_m...@earthlink.net wrote:
>
> https://openphdguiding.org/getting-help/
>
>
>
>
>
> You also need to be sure you’re running the latest camera drivers.
>
>
>
> Bruce
>
>
>

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/743f7916-87b5-4c0f-92eb-d32c618e9b24n%40googlegroups.com.