QHY5-III 174 + MacOS High Sierra (10.13) Support Help

[Daniel S]

Hi there, I've been struggling with my newly purchased QHY5 guider and would like some help before I pull my hair out!

PHD2 is able to connect to the camera perfectly fine and event successfully detect pixel size, but as soon as I try to capture any images it goes into an infinite loop of "waiting for device".

I'm unable to get a preview image too.

I've tried PHD2 v2.6.4 and v2.6.4dev3

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :)

[Daniel S]

It might be important to note that it works perfectly fine on my Windows 10 machine

[Andy Galasso]

Hi Daniel,

Somebody else just recently posted with the same problem not being able to get a QHY5-III 174 working on Mac. We had to bounce the issue over to QHY as it seems like an incompatibility with the QHY support library (SDK) provided by QHY. Your best bet would be to post in the QHY forum to see if they have an SDK update for the Mac that will support the camera that we can incorporate into PHD2.

Andy

[mahaffm]

Just wanted to add my 2 cents in. I am also having this Camera looping issue, However, I am running everything under Widows 10 not a Mac

Here's my link: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/open-phd-guiding/7DS8KnkpYUw

I was able to find a workaround and for whatever reason I can't explain it, It only happens when I have the following ASOM drivers running: In SGPro, Imaging Camera (either my ATIK 383L+  or the ASI071), n-STEP Focuser, Celestron Telescope, and Alnitak Flat Panel driver. In PHD2 I have the QHY5iii camera and the Celestron Telescopee driver. If I have the four driver connected via SGPro and when I start PHD2 looping I get the looping showing up at the bottom of the PHD2 window but no image. It's like it is waiting on the QHY5iii Camera. However, if I simply disconnect one of the ASCOM drivers in SGPro then PHD2 looping starting woriking. So for my workaround I don't connect the Alnitak Flat Panel. I simply do my flat panel work outside of my sequence where I only need the Camera and the Flat Panel drivers running.

Not a great workaround but at least I was able to get the QHY5iii camera to work in PHD2. I tried everything short of a new laptop and nothing fixed the waiting for camera problem in PHD2 except for not activating one of the drivers in SGPro. I suspect eventually others might run into this if it was a issue other then with my hardware.

I tend to agree that it must be something with the way the QHY driver is working. Also, I do use the QHY PoleMaster so yet another QHY driver but I never have the PoleMaster running when I'm imaging.

Not sure if this is much help but wanted to let you know what I found and what I needed to do to get things working.

Regards,
Mark

[Alruckle]

Daniel 8,

I am the other person who has that problem with my new QHY5III.  I not only had the issue with the two previous versions of the MacOS.  and on two different laptops and a desktop Mac.    I posted the problem on the QHY forum last week but have only received one post that suggested I use a program other than PHD2.  If you would also post on the QHY support site it would raise awareness to the issue with our cameras.

alruckle

[Andy Galasso]

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 2:58 PM, Alruckle <alru...@me.com> wrote:

I posted the problem on the QHY forum last week but have only received one post that suggested I use a program other than PHD2.

The most direct evidence for me of a Mac compatibility problem was that QHY's own EZcap QT application did not work with the camera on Mac.  Based on that I doubt any other program is going to work.

Andy

[Alruckle]

Andy,
        thank you for this post.  I was curious about your response, that it was a QHY issue so quickly,  This explains a lot.  I read the post by QinXiaoXu about the QHY5III174 color working on the mac using something he referred to as "based on libopencv and libusb-1.0."  I don't know what they are but the doesn't help at all with PHD2 on the Mac.

aruckle

[Daniel S]

Alruckle,

I saw that exact post, if anyone here wants to keep an eye on it: http://qhyccd.com/bbs/index.php?topic=6100.msg31887

Otherwise, I'm stuck waiting for a response from QHY. It's been 48 hours now without an response, if they don't get back to me soon I'll have to return this wonderful guider for one that has proven mac support. I really hope that's something I don't have to do :(

[Alruckle]

Daniel,
            Did you check the QHY thread lately,   There is some action by QHYCCD on making the QHY5III 174 work on the Mac with PHD2 and EZCAP_QT.   Check your below link for the post  dated today.    It sounds encouraging. 

alruckle         

[Daniel S]

I also got a response from QHY support this week informing me that the SDK used for the latest PHD release didn't include QHY5-III drivers and they will be getting in contact with PHD to send the updated SDK.

Here are the last two responses from support:

Dear Daniel, Now,PHD2 doesn't support QHY5III serials camera,it maybe because our SDK is updated,I will connect their software engineer.And PHD2 can only support QHY5II serial camera now.

Dear Daniel, Hello,

Due to the previous Mac version EZCAP-QT used the old version SDK,just support part of our product camera,unfortunately this camera not one of them.we are develop new version SDK now,please wait a momnt,after we finish new version SDK,this camera will work normal with EZCAP-QT Mac version.

[Andy Galasso]

On Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 2:56 PM, Daniel S <archc...@gmail.com> wrote:

I also got a response from QHY support this week informing me that the SDK used for the latest PHD release didn't include QHY5-III drivers and they will be getting in contact with PHD to send the updated SDK.

That's right, QHY did contact me a few days ago to say that they are working on a new SDK release.  Once we get that from them we will incorporate it into PHD2 and release a new dev build.

Andy

[Daniel S]

Excellent! Thank you Andy!

Could you comment on the stability/reliability of PHD2 on Mac vs Windows? I am trying to decide if I need to setup a windows virtual environment on my mac or not.