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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Streaming 2 ZWO cameras

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Replied by Franco on topic Steaming 2 ZWO cameras

Forgot to mention that the same thing happens when running kstars/Ekos on the server so maybe shouldn't have mentioned the wi-fi link.

I tried turning on debugging in indiserver but just got pages and pages of mainly ////

I'm pretty Linux savvy so if there's anything you want me to try to diagnose the problem, just let me know.
2 years 9 months ago #72509

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Replied by Franco on topic Streaming 2 ZWO cameras

Just to close this thread off. I spent about a week working with ZWO support trying to diagnose this issue but it wasn't resolved. In the meantime I bought myself an ASIAir pro, mainly because I liked the look of the case. I did consider StellarMate but because it uses the indi_asi_ccd driver it was unlikely to work for me.  Although the ASIAir does use indiserver, it doesn't use it for imaging so the 2 camera problem isn't present.  Maybe a solution for INDI would be to have 2 separate drivers, one for the guider and one for the imager, this is what ASIAir does.

Just as an aside, you can use Kstars to move the mount with ASIAir because it is using indi_eqmod_telescope.
2 years 8 months ago #73770

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Replied by Alfred on topic Streaming 2 ZWO cameras

I have the exact same problem with my two ASI cams for several weeks now. In my case it's a 294/294Pro combination. The main cam streams ok but streaming from the guide cam freezes the driver and lsusb doesn't show any ASI cam anymore. No other possibility than to reboot then. While streaming from the guide cam the main come does absolutely nothing so traffic from the main cam does not cause the guide cam to fail.

indilib.org/forum/ekos/9772-dither-messe....html?start=24#72003
Last edit: 2 years 8 months ago by Alfred.
2 years 8 months ago #73798

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The only solution is to have two different drivers. I started working on this but had to stop due to other obligations. Starting an issue here: github.com/indilib/indi/issues/1499

Now only if I can get the day to last more than 24 hours....
2 years 8 months ago #73801

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Replied by Alfred on topic Streaming 2 ZWO cameras

Jasem,

in the issue description you wrote: "A primary limitation of this method is the congestion of the pipes when multiple devices start sending BLOBs at the same time"

This is not the case here. It's just the guide cam alone sending a video stream while the main cam is totally idle.

The 294/294Pro setup did work reliably ever since I bought them years ago. The issue arose just a few weeks ago.
Last edit: 2 years 8 months ago by Alfred.
2 years 8 months ago #73802

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Replied by Franco on topic Streaming 2 ZWO cameras

ZWO were suggesting it was a USB bandwidth problem but USB 3 is pretty fast and even having the cameras on different busses, the imager on USB3 and the guider on USB2 didn't help.

I also had instances when the guide camera would stop working completely and only a disconnect/reconnect would make it work again.

The debugging from the indiserver is a bit confusing, plus the information is being truncated making it hard to understand what's going on. The ASI ccd driver debug is a bit clearer - you enable it by modifying the ~/.ZWO/ASIconfig.xml file to set <DebugPrint type="3">01</DebugPrint> and the log file is in ~/.ZWO/asicamerasdk/asicamerasdk.log

Here's an excerpt

2021-07-15 21:22:30,997: INFO ASICamera : [WorkingFunc]: head:0xaa11 tail:0xf200
2021-07-15 21:22:30,997: INFO ASICamera : [WorkingFunc]: drop frames:4
2021-07-15 21:22:31,048: INFO ASICamera : [AutoExpGain]: Dest:100 Mean:1  gain:50 exp:95000 reg:0x43a
2021-07-15 21:22:31,152: INFO ASICamera : [AutoExpGain]: Dest:100 Mean:1  gain:50 exp:95000 reg:0x43a
2021-07-15 21:22:31,231: INFO ASICamera : [WorkingFunc]: head:0xaa11 tail:0xf200
2021-07-15 21:22:31,232: INFO ASICamera : [WorkingFunc]: drop frames:5
2021-07-15 21:22:31,232: INFO ASICamera : [WorkingFunc]: try lowing pkg!!
 
2 years 8 months ago #73803

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A single camera can for sure stream fine. So if there is an issue, it is probably related to a specific model and/or platform. Sometimes reducing USB bandwidth helps.. perhaps because it makes it slower so less frames are getting dropped. But I failed to stream from BOTH cameras at the same time. Need to investigate that again.
2 years 8 months ago #73843

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Replied by Alfred on topic Streaming 2 ZWO cameras

Both cams stream perfectly well when connected alone. The issue exists only when they are both connected.

With the 294Pro sitting idle and the 294 streaming the freeze can occur after a short while.
Last edit: 2 years 8 months ago by Alfred.
2 years 8 months ago #73844

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Replied by Alfred on topic Streaming 2 ZWO cameras

6 weeks ago I had posted a video that demonstrates the issue.

indilib.org/media/kunena/attachments/259...1-06-06_00.58.18.mp4
2 years 8 months ago #73845

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I can confirm this is a ZWO SDK issue. ASIGetVideoData always times out when two cameras are connected when one camera is already streaming. Looks like some limitation of the SDK. Probably the only solution this is to have a single camera per executable.
2 years 8 months ago #73862

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Ok another tests confirms that with two executables both cameras can stream at the same time. So it appears the ZWO SDK has multi-threading issues making it unable to stream. Now that the problem is identified, the solution is not easy. The current driver inquires about connected cameras and then create an instance of each. This appears to be working fine for everything except streaming apparently. Creating a dedicated driver for each camera can be done in perhaps these methods:

1. The main executable detects which cameras are connected, then spawns separate process for each camera. These processes have to be connected back to INDI server via this shim in the middle. Requires quite a bit of work.
2. Make camera provide a list of detected cameras and only connect when the user selects and press connect. This could be saved in config so that next time the driver is executed it loads from config and tries to connect automatically. However, this has a limitation since the driver label cannot be dynamically changed after connecting to the camera (like SBIG CCD camera driver for example). So maybe we can add "ZWO Primary Camera" and "ZWO Guide Camera" labels and these names would stick.

Not sure if there is perhaps a 3rd option.
2 years 8 months ago #73866

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Replied by nou on topic Steaming 2 ZWO cameras

3. option ZWO fix their SDK.

This seems like same issue bbs.astronomy-imaging-camera.com/d/11136...support-by-linux-sdk
Last edit: 2 years 8 months ago by nou.
2 years 8 months ago #73874

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