Hi amendolajamie,
Looking at Doug's post there may be some RF interference with HDMI when connecting through 2.4GHz wifi (if I read correctly). Try using the installed VNC in Astroberry and connect headless. This is really easy and stable. Just downlaod VNC on your PC or laptop and find out the IP address of the Pi then connect by using that IP in the VNC address. I would check what the IP address your Nest wifi is assigning and lock that in as a static IP.
I don't know much about Google Nest but my wifi's "smarts" changes from 2.4 to 5GHz to find the best signal. This is a pain. This is OK when using a laptop but may cause issues with the Pi. Try to ensure that the Pi connects with a static ip and preferentially to either 2.4 or 5GHz. Limit the choices. You can do this in wifi and network preferences in Astroberry by assigning a number (I think that this is between 0 and 100). I seem to remember that the default is 0. So if you put 99 this will be the WiFi freq and network that is tried first. If you have other freq or networks that you use you can assign these lesser prominence.
If your Mate set up works headless then there is a chance it is the HDMI connection that is the problem. Doug's post may shed some light on this issue.

See how you go with those suggestions and let us know how you get on.

Mike

@ amendolajamie : Re: "The Mate hardware setup is exactly the same, so I know that this can work with the RPI4".

FWIW, I have yet to hear of anyone that can plug their equipment into the Pi4's USB3 port(s) while using 2.4Ghz wireless and achieve stable operations. Momentary success is possible, but not reliable operations (defined as consistently repeatable boots with functional wireless operation). Your symptoms sound EXACTLY like what everyone has experienced with 2.4Ghz wireless and USB3 on the Pi4. As I say in the referenced post, USB3, HDMI, bluetooth, and particular screen resolutions are involved. Best of luck as you figure out your strategy, but I'd suggest 5Ghz or an ethernet cable. Some have mentioned using separate USB wireless dongle configs (possibly from hubs), but I haven't followed those approaches closely (search other posts for details).

A second note about your chained camera config. I haven't run a chained config before, but I note that the ASI specs for your cameras are 170ma + 300ma = 470ma. That should be fine for USB3, but a bit tight for USB2 (recognizing they've set some headroom in the spec). If you add equipment in the future (focuser, SSD, etc.), you'll want to be thinking about a powered USB3 hub. In that case, only the data connect should go back to the PI's USB3 port....all other equipment is best plugged into a powered USB3 hub.

Hi amendolajamie,

Here are my recommendations:

1- Try to utilize the 5GHz. Its bandwidth is out of the noise bandwidth produced by USB (2.4-2.5 GHz) www.usb.org/sites/default/files/327216.pdf
RPi doesn't support 5GHz natively, so you can use an old router that supports 5GHz, connect with RPi via ethernet (you can add your mount as well), and then connect your PC to the wireless router via 5GHz. I did that in my setup and works great.

2- Try to avoid chain USB. You don't know how much effect on your RPi power status. If the numbers are correct as dmsummers suggested, you are really walking over the edge. You don't need that and you have an empty USB2 that is natively supported by RPi4.

Hope this helps...

Regarding using a powered hub for the ASI equipment: I have been using ASI1600MM and ASI6200MM cameras with an ASI120MC-S and ASI EFW chained to it with no issues whatsoever on USB3 ports of various hardware, including RPi4. Just my $0.02


Wouter

I have a question for you, since I did have this working well, but have since reinstalled Astroberry and setting up new settings for similar equipment.

Do you use the integrated USB2 hub on the ASI1600MM, or directly EFW / Guide devices to the Pi?

Also, do you use any specific bandwidth values for the cameras in the configuration?

I just checked, and my 1600 cameras hub is powered, so that's not an issue. I didn't mention it, but I always use headless but I noticed that the astroberry is forcing the hdmi to be on in the config.txt. I'll look at turning that off. I'm also going to try and switch the pi to 5g. I think I need to set the country code to achieve that.

Sorry for not being clear. I wrote “chained” hoping that it would be clear that I plug in both the guide cam and the EFW into the USB hub on the ASI1600 or ASI6200.

No special USB configuration for the imaging camera. I use all defaults apart from specifying the gain and offset. Nothing else.

This is on Ubuntu Server 20.04 with the Mate desktop by the way.

And FWIW I always, ALWAYS, connect via an ethernet cable, even when in the field. I make sure that the RPi has a fixed ip address in the range of my home WIFI network so no matter what it always has the same ip address and I can connect to it however I like, whether it is plugged in to my router at home or directly into my MacBook when I am in the field.


Wouter

I just checked my setup with mate. It's 2.4 and it's doing perfectly fine with everything plugged in. USB3 is working fine as well. This is a setup I've been using for months without any wifi or USB issues. So it does not look like I need 5G. I'm going to try and switch off the hdmi on the astroberry setup...

One HW thing is just a little different --- I'm using two RPI4's here. The first (mate) one is the 4G memory version, and the astroberry is an 8G version. I'm going to switch the hardware between them and see if that makes a difference.

OK, so I've got some success. It looks like it is the hdmi. I set hdmi_ignore_hotplug=1 in /boot/config.txt and now it boots and I can ssh to it over wifi using 2.4G. All while my camera is plugged in to USB3. This is great, I think that I've got a fix. I just need to install a VNC separate from X11/HDMI and I should be good to go. I can still VNC. but now just get a blank screen "can not currently show desktop". I verified that HDMI is not working by plugging it into a TV. No HDMI output.

I have HDMI turned off in /boot/config.txt by some option, maybe search power saving techniques to check exact directive, it does not stop VNC working just turns off HDMI hardware.

hdmi_ignore_hotplug=1 turns it off. Unfortunately since the astroberry VNC setup is sharing the X11/HDMI desktop, VNC stops working after you do this and just gives a black screen with the message: "can not currently show desktop". On my other setup I ran a VNC separate from the X11 desktop and was able to shut off HDMI output. That's why that setup worked with WIFI and USB3.

OH, and I was mistaken about the distro that I used for my previous setup. It was actually raspbian, not mate.

Jamie