It is definitely possible, Wouter, that in the course of my fumbling attempts to fix the problem the key factor was that I completely purged and reinstalled Indi at the right time.  In doing so, I may have purged a defective file that was ignored during the regular upgrade.

Lots of things to try here, now just to find the time. Thanks all!

Brian:

Just try one thing: Run

sudo sh -c 'echo 256 > /sys/module/usbcore/parameters/usbfs_memory_mb'

Quit Kstars (do NOT restart your Pi), start Kstars again and let me know whether that fixes your problem.

Thanks, Jo

No go on that command Jo.  The ASI EAF is slow to load in the stable version but it does load. The mount, both imaging and guide cameras load first, very quickly, then about 2-3 seconds later the ASI EAF loads.  That has always been the norm for my setup.  With the nightly everything is the same except the focuser never loads.   I'll do some more poking around.  

OK, thanks, Brian. It was a long-shot anyway.

I have been thinking about this some more, Brian, and if increasing the buffer memory did not fix it for you, I wonder whether purging Indi and reinstalling it from scrap would fix it. That is the only other thing I did. Perhaps there is a residual outdated file that did not get updated using the regular update process, but that would get corrected by a complete Indi reinstallation.

Have you tried that?

Jo

There was a new nightly in the repository this morning so I update-upgraded to that but still no difference, ASI EAF still won't load.  Playing around with sbc's has become sort of a second hobby so yes, I have started from scratch.  I've been formatting the SD card and re-installing the OS + Kstars.  Do you know a command that will purge Indie?  I've got so I can get from a formatted SD to up and running in about 40 minutes.  Purging would be a lot quicker.  I've tried purging Kstars without much luck, there seems to be a lot of associated files/directories, or maybe I'm missing an easy purge command to make it simple?

Not sure that is the cleanest way, but works for me:

$ sudo apt purge indi-full indi-bin libindi1

Then recompile, preferably from source. I can send you the script I am using for that on my Pi4 running Ubuntu 20.04, if you want. It may need to be modified for other Linux distributions.

If you also want to wipe out kstars, run

$ sudo apt purge kstars-bleeding

To reinstall run

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/indinightly
sudo apt update
sudo apt install indi-full kstars-bleeding gsc

This problem is still present in the latest nightly nightly driver update as of yesterday.
I installed it on a mini-PC that had been working flawlessly last year by simply updating it.
After the update, the ASI cameras were still detected, but not the ASI filterwheel.
Copying the modified asi.rules and efw.rules files from my previously fixed Pi4 installation to the /etc/udev/rules.d folder in the mini-PC immediately fixed the problem.

Clearly, whatever changes were made earlier last month broke the ASI-EFW and the problem persists.

Yes, My ASI EAF is still missing here.  I've been following along with the nightly driver updates but still can't get it to work.  I've copied over the content of my rules'd folder from my stable (unupdated) version to my latest nightly but still can't get it to load. 

There seem to be two different things going on, and a currently unstable ASI nightly version. I mentioned in another thread, but you may want to stay away from the current (as of this writing) nightly indi-asi and libasi versions. They are crashing hard for me.

Brian, do you recall when you last had the EAF working? Are all your cameras still working properly right now? That is, are you able to take exposures and have the images download into fitsviewer without any problem?

Finally, to set a baseline, if you are running a Ubuntu/Debian variant, runto give us a baseline.

I am not a hard-core developer, but perhaps we can get enough information to get one to look at it.

Jim
 

thanks for your reply Jim.  Although I use the nightly builds almost exclusively, I always have a stable version on an SD card to fall back on. I also have the Stellarmate OS which is dependable. So, all devices are working fine (including my ASI EAF) in the stable version.

I'm guessing it was about two weeks ago after a nightly update that my ASI EAF stopped loading. I've tried copying the contents of the rules.d folder from the stable version to the nightly but still no focuser loads. Jo mentions that this procedure brings his filter wheel back to life.

To answer your request, here is the result:

brian@nanopct4:~$ apt list --installed|grep asi

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

indi-asi/focal,now 1.9~202104020113~ubuntu20.04.1 arm64 [installed,automatic]
libasi/focal,now 1.14~202104020012~ubuntu20.04.1 arm64 [installed,automatic]
libbasicusageenvironment1/focal,now 2020.01.19-1build1 arm64 [installed,automatic]

I'm using Armban focal OS on my NanoPC-T4 device