PHD2 Registry Error

[Omar Radwan]

So last night I received an error message I have never seen before about a registry key:

Cannot Read value HKCU\Software\StarkLabs\PHD2GuidingV2\Confirm\1\ra_steps  error 6 the handle is invalid.

Hopefully someone can shed some light on this error.

https://openphdguiding.org/logs/dl/PHD2_logs_Sg8j.zip

[Bruce Waddington]

This is very puzzling, we haven't seen this error before either.  The error message is coming from the cross-platform library (wxWidgets) that is used by PHD2 rather than from PHD2 itself.  It raises the question of whether your Registry has become corrupted in some way or there was an unrelated failure of the PC - for example, running low on power.  If you are comfortable using the Regedit tool in Windows, you can navigate to the various registry entries that belong to PHD2.  The app doesn't require that the specific key shown in the error message has to be present, so my guess is that the higher level nodes in that tree encountered a problem.  If you look at the Registry and the nodes in the PHD2 hierarchy can be read, the Registry is probably ok.  If the Registry is damaged in this area, you will need to figure out why that happened and then re-install PHD2.

Your real problem with this guiding session is that TSX either crashed or the X2 adapter stopped handling commands from PHD2.  We have heard of this from a few other TSX users, including some who confirmed that TSX had crashed.  One known problem with the TSX software is that slewing the scope while guiding is active creates problems in the Software Bisque code.  That's something you should avoid if possible.

Regards,

Bruce