Longer test update - FAILURE - there were so many probems tonight but I will list and see if I can relicate - this is using the nightly test build:
1) park and unpark do not crash Kstars = GOOD
2) park and unpark are inconsistant - it worked...then didn't...reboot...then it work....was able to get a schedule strated finally
3) mid run the Guide control suddenly switched from my ASI120Mini (while in the missle of excellent guiding using sep multistar + the new learning feature ge...whatever it is called
4) this killed Kstars (not responding) - rebooted - could not get consistant connection to cameras...pegasus PPA suddenly was not even able to connect and errored with the need to add the user to the group (that linux internal connection thing - can't remember the syntax) - then it was back after another reboot

I gave up after that as even the mount was confused and thougt it was now parked - I can only assume some commands made it through.....so my conclusion is your fix is partially good enought to stop the crash, but there is some seroius issues with objects in here as seen by the main camera suddenly becoming the guide camera....very wierd - I will try and see if the logs were writing and pull them - but wow it was a strange run

@knro are there any news about this issue? After more that two months from the last official release, I expect a new KStats/Ekos version any day now. So if you need testers for the Ekos/OnStep combo, I'm available to test it on a macOS build.

Thanks!

KStars 3.5.0 is planned for late Sep / early October. There is one milestone left (StellarSolver integration) then we're good to go.

Are all the changes to support the multi device model of OnStep driver in place for 3.5.0? Wow! that was a big refactor, for sure.

Thank you very much!

Is anyone using PEC with INDI?
I tried recently and it did not work as expected: I recorded one worm rotation and after PEC started playing, I did not see any change in terms of periodic error.

Which OnStep version does the OnStep driver expect, or was developed against? I assume features, behavior and capabilities can vary. Latest release is 3.16. When I experimented with OnStep focuser support, I was told by Howard, that master would be safe currently (end 2020). Therefor my current version is 4.17j.

Anything you driver developers can recommend? Better stick with Release?

CS
Guido

The recommended version of OnStep itself is the beta , which is now at 4.23.
Although it is labeled beta, it is pretty stable.

The master version is 5.x, but it will be phased out when Howard's new rewrite (OnStepX) is done in a few months perhaps.

You can use 3.x, 4.x or 5.x with KStars/Ekos/INDI that is in Jassem's PPA.
That is because the API itself has not changed significantly. A few commands were added (e.g. Spiral Search), but if an OnStep client does not issue that command, then nothing happens anyway.

Thanks! Good to know.

I had a frustrating evening yesterday when I wanted to switch my mount from Equatorial to AltAz und therefore needed to recompile OnStep. It moved in unexplainable ways and also parked in different positions. At some point I switched to the latest Release and it began to move reasonable again. But after a "move to home" it got stuck. An "unpark" was not successful. "Tracking enable" however was successful. Later I figured out that it works when I set a park position. OnStep's internal state handling is sometimes a bit inconsistent. After some more issues (timezone was 1h off) I finally got it working.

OK, this was all unrelated to INDI, as I reconfigured my mount to AltAz for visual observation and I am using a Basic Handcontroller and the OnStep App for controlling the mount. However I used INDI inbetween when I was trying to figure out what was going wrong.

Sorry for venting my frustration with OnStep. Let's hope Howard makes the Beta a final stable release before putting all his energy into OnStepX.

CS
Guido

OnStepX is ongoing, and the beta is actually very stable. Howard is just being conservative and want to get more community testing before he brands that as stable.

I don't use an Alt-Az mount, so can't tell what went wrong.

But you should ask these questions in the group, where there are some Alt-Az users who may help.
Before you do this though, try to test the same sequence indoors during the day.
Once you have a reproducible sequence, the problem becomes obvious to others, and therefore easier to solve.

I have a problem with the Weather Feature:
I use a real meteo station "Weather Radio" and the Indi watchdog.
The problem is that  LX200 OnStep overrides the weather setting on the watchdog and i can't change it.
Is it possible to turn off the weather feature on the LX200 OnStep driver ?

Very strange.
It works well with CCDCiel but not with Kstars ...
With CCDCiel, I can change the Weather driver on Watchdog.
With Kstars I cannot and if I change to CCDCiel, Kstars changes new driver for LX200 OnStep.

KStars was forcing first detected Weather source to be there. I just disabled that in GIT and should be available in 3.5.3 soon.