×

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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Ekos not remembering settings with multiple ZWO cameras

  • Posts: 3
  • Thank you received: 1
Hi,

I've been using Ekos for about 6 mo now and really enjoy all its features. However there is a 'small' issue that I keep on running into that I would really like to find a fix for.

I have two ZWO cameras, a 120MC-S for guiding and a 294MC Pro for imaging. For my 120MC I set the format to Luma (still trying to determine if this is best). For my 294MC Pro I set some custom WB settings, set the format to RAW 16-bit, and set the temperature to -5 with the cooler on, along with a few other settings about which is the Primary camera, Guide camera, etc.

I save the configs individually. Try to re-load them. All is well.

I then shutdown Ekos and Kstars. When I reopen everything, I've lost some of the settings, even if I manually Load the configs. I've had it happen that I wasn't paying close attention on startup and ended up doing a night's session in 8-bit mode rather than 16-bit mode....

In poking around, I found that there is a file with all the config settings in ~/.indi/ZWO CCD_config.xml. When I save the config I sometimes see entries for both cameras. For instance:
<newSwitchVector device='ZWO CCD ASI120MC-S' name='CCD_VIDEO_FORMAT'>
  <oneSwitch name='ASI_IMG_RAW8'>
      Off
  </oneSwitch>
  <oneSwitch name='ASI_IMG_RGB24'>
      Off
  </oneSwitch>
  <oneSwitch name='ASI_IMG_Y8'>
      On
  </oneSwitch>
  <oneSwitch name='ASI_IMG_RAW16'>
      Off
  </oneSwitch>
</newSwitchVector>
<newSwitchVector device='ZWO CCD ASI294MC Pro' name='CCD_VIDEO_FORMAT'>
  <oneSwitch name='ASI_IMG_RAW8'>
      Off
  </oneSwitch>
  <oneSwitch name='ASI_IMG_RGB24'>
      Off
  </oneSwitch>
  <oneSwitch name='ASI_IMG_Y8'>
      Off
  </oneSwitch>
  <oneSwitch name='ASI_IMG_RAW16'>
      On
  </oneSwitch>
</newSwitchVector>
 
 

However sometimes I see only 1 or the other. And on shutting down Ekos/Kstars this file gets re-written.

I think I figured out that if in the Indi Control panel I load the config of one camera, make changes to it, save it, I have to load the config again for the other camera, before I save the second camera's settings for both camera settings to be saved in the config.xml. Otherwise one overwrites the other. But on shutdown whatever is re-writing the config is not loading what's already there so only one of the two camera's settings persist.

Is there something I can do about this or doing wrong?

I've built latest from source on my Raspberry Pi 4 on May 7th. However, I've had this issue for quite a while so it isn't new.

Hopefully someone has some tips to get around this.

Thanks.
3 years 9 months ago #54806

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Welcome to INDI forum. You're not supposed to get this one file, it's odd. It might be related to multiple devices sharing the same driver.
3 years 9 months ago #54811

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 3
  • Thank you received: 1
Thanks!

It does seem like a file naming issue. If I look at the .indi directory I see:
ASI EAF_config.xml
ASI EAF_config.xml.default
Astrometry_config.xml
Astrometry_config.xml.default
iOptron CEM40_config.xml
iOptron CEM40_config.xml.default
SX Wheel_config.xml
SX Wheel_config.xml.default
ZWO CCD_config.xml
ZWO CCD_config.xml.default

But the tabs in the control panel are Astrometry, SX Wheel, iOptron CEM40, ZWO CCD ASI294MC Pro, ZWO CCD ASI120MC-S, ASI EAF

Seems like the file name doesn't include the extra camera model name.

Without knowing too much about the code maybe a simple fix is to use the string used in the tab name for the file name. I might go poking around the code....

Thanks.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Alfred
3 years 9 months ago #54815

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

If you delete the ZWO files and start the drivers again, they get created as is?
3 years 9 months ago #54896

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 3
  • Thank you received: 1
I tried this:

Before starting kstars/ekos, I deleted both ZWO CCD files. I then started kstars and connected Ekos. The console logging warns that no previous configurations are found.

I then go to the ASI294MC tab and change my settings and save. The two ZWO CCD files seen before are re-created. They actually seem to contain a mix of ASI294MC and ASI120MC properties which seems correct.

I then go to the ASI120MC tab and change my settings there and save. I then look at the ZWO CCD_config.xml file and it now only contains ASI120MC options. The ASI294MC options are lost (but they are still in the defaults file).

I then go to the ASI294MC tab again and click save. If I look at the ZWO CCD_config.xml file I again see a mix of ASI294MC and ASI120MC properties.

I then stop Ekos. The ZWO CCD_config.xml file is again updated and now it contains only ASI120MC properties.

Next time I restart everything my ASI294MC settings are gone.



From looking through the code, I see that each Driver has a config.xml. Each driver can support multiple devices. For each device there can be multiple properties. Each property belongs to a device. So a config.xml can contain properties for different devices that are handled by the driver. I didn't see a simple way to make it so that the device name would be used for the config files, thereby having a config per device. However, it does seem like the code should be able to handle this case, it just seems like something with the ASI120MC-S configuration is somehow not following convention and overwriting the already existing properties.

One thing I noticed is that there is an error on the terminal console upon startup of ekos:
Dispatch command error(-1): INDI: Could not find property CCD_TEMPERATURE in ZWO CCD ASI120MC-S

This happens even if I remove the config.xml completely. I'm wondering if this error is causing something not to get properly handled with properties from different devices.
3 years 9 months ago #54897

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 269
  • Thank you received: 53
I am having the same issues. One possible clue is that the config file for the ASI1600MM has entries tagged as device='ZWO CCD ASI120MM-S'
But otherwise, the saving of the VideoFormat seems to be somewhat random. Sometimes saving correctly, sometimes as 8 bit and sometimes with no values at all. This last case causes errors on config load sometimes on the ASI120 and sometimes on the ASI1600
Config files attached

File Attachment:

File Name: ConfigXML.zip
File Size:2 KB
Last edit: 3 years 9 months ago by Ken Self.
3 years 9 months ago #55598
Attachments:

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Ok this is very odd.. is this with the latest INDI? I am aware of the DEBUG issue (it's shared between multiple drivers), but the rest of the settings should be OK.
3 years 9 months ago #55601

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 269
  • Thank you received: 53
I'm running indi-asi driver version 1.6
Should I install the nightly?

ETA: Installed the nightly build with indi-asi 1.7 and it looks ok now
Last edit: 3 years 9 months ago by Ken Self. Reason: Latest update:
3 years 9 months ago #55605

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Time to create page: 0.852 seconds