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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Meridian flip issue with the scheduler

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I noticed this a few nights ago and it happened again tonight. I schedule jobs with a repetitive sequence of 9 x L, 1 x R, 1 x G and 1 x B. I do this because the light pollution from my backyard is uneven with Madrid to the east. This way I hope to more or less spread out the light pollution changes over the complete sequence of subs with each filter affected to a same level. It also prevents ruining a night when clouds roll in which may prevent, say, all G and B images to fail. The total exposure time of the 12 jobs adds up to 15 minutes so that makes for easy planning. When I want to take, say, 3 h of exposures I simply repeat the 12 sub sequence 12 times.

So I pointed at NGC 2683 and started imaging 3 h of exposures at 21:00 CET = 20:00 UT which is several minutes before the end of astronomical twilight. This is perfectly OK from my backyard since it won't get completely dark anyway and the sky doesn't get any darker from about 20 minutes before the end of astronomical twilight. Imaging went 100% ok until the meridian flip at 22:20 CET. Then two things happened:

1) No plate solving was performed to re-center the target. Perhaps I forgot to tick a specific tick box but I checked and double checked and triple checked and I am pretty sure all is configured correctly
2) The job sequence was reset. In this particular case a series of 9 L subs was just done so I expected the scheduler to continue with R but not only did it start with L again but also with L from the top of the list!

I am attaching the logs and the sequence file. Would anyone know if this is a bug or if I am doing something wrong?


Thanks, Wouter
5 years 1 day ago #37052
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I just thought of something. Remember job progress is not checked. Could that be the reason for the restart described in 2)? If yes then I’d consider that a bug since a meridian flip should not be considered ending one job and starting the next. Or in this case restarting the current job since it wasn’t done yet.
5 years 1 day ago #37053

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I have used the stable build since March 7 and have not had that issue. As you may recall, I had an issue with the previous nightly build where the schedule was trying to align after the flip but never took an image. At the time, nobody else had that problem either.
Now, the only issue I have found with the scheduler is that the ‘Save’ button doesn’t work. It truncates the schedule, but one can overcome this by selecting ‘Save As’ everytime changes to the .esl file are made.

I wonder whether these unique and different problems nobody else seems to have are installation related?
The following user(s) said Thank You: Wouter van Reeven
5 years 1 day ago #37071

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Yes there definitely seem to be some "local" problems occasionally. I'll try to recreate the INDI xml files and the userdb.sqlite files (basically start from scratch) and see if that helps. If not I'll reinstall the software and drivers and all but I'd like to avoid that if possible.


Clear skies, Wouter
5 years 1 day ago #37075

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Jo just told me offline how to reinstall the stable software: add the nightly repo and update all. Then remove the nightly repo again and let apt reinstall the stable software. I am on it as we speak. Thanks Jo!
The following user(s) said Thank You: Jose Corazon
5 years 1 day ago #37076

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OK, I reinstalled the software as described above and enabled "remember job progress". Now everything is back to normal and the meridian flip on NGC 2420 just went 100% OK. I suspect it was a glitch in the Matrix. Once more thanks for your great advise, Jo!
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5 years 19 hours ago #37088

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Aaaaand it failed again on the next target. Despite remember job progress having been checked it traced back a few steps (so not completely to the top of the list but nearly) and started there again. Plus it didn’t plate solve after the meridian flip. I’ll inspect the logs tomorrow. Now off to sleep.

For now I will only schedule jobs to start after the target has crossed the meridian. In a way this is better because light pollution is much worse to the east. But is does involve a lot more planning on my behalf :(
5 years 17 hours ago #37091

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Could you please post the log file of last night and both scheduler file and capture sequence file?

The behaviour should not be dependent whether remember job is set or not. So it seems like you have stepped into a bug. I would like to reproduce it so that I could try to fix it.

Wolfgang
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5 years 9 hours ago #37102

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Sure, thanks very much for offering to help, Wolfgang!

EDIT: Sorry, I attached the wrong logs. Please see the log_19-45-21.txt.tgz file for the correct logs of last night. It should contain two meridian flips. One successful for NGC 2420 around 21:00 and then one unsuccessful for NGC 2841 around 22:40.
Last edit: 5 years 5 hours ago by Wouter van Reeven.
5 years 7 hours ago #37106
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I've had a weird issue just now as well. Not using scheduler. But I started a test sequence and the capture said "Meridian Flip" but the mount wasn't flipping. I check in the mount tab and meridian flip was checked, so I unchecked and aborted the sequence. When I restarted the sequence, it's always stuck in "meridian flip" state. I believe when the mount module "Meridian Flip" is unchecked, this should probably reset the meridian flip status in capture module (if it was idle at least). The only way to get rid of the "meridian flip" status is by restarting KStars.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Wouter van Reeven, Wolfgang Reissenberger
Last edit: 5 years 6 hours ago by Jasem Mutlaq.
5 years 6 hours ago #37107

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OK so I am not the only one. In a way that's a relief since now at least I know it is not me. Let's see if we can find out the cause for this and, at least as important, a fix!


Wouter
5 years 6 hours ago #37108

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Yes, there is a number of these idiosyncracies that seem to be specific to one user and not others.

I would be very interested in finding out whether anyone else has noticed the 'Save' issue in the scheduler that I described above. Basically, what happens is that I can set up a sequence in the scheduler and save it 'Save As' just fine. But if I make any changes to it and then just 'Save' (middle button), then the saved .esl file will be truncated after about a dozen lines. It won't show the target anymore, the fields come up blank, all that shows is whether the twilight, asap and altitude boxes are checked, but no target or capture sequence specified. When you now want to reload that schedule, it comes up blank, so all the entries have been lost.
To ascertain that error, you just open the .esl file with a text editor after having executed a 'Save' command.

Intriguingly, I have not experienced all the other problems that have been described with the March 7 stable installation. Especially not those Meridian flip issues Jasem and Wouter are describing. So what I am wondering is whether those are caused by residual installation files from a previous install that have not been entirely purged or been overwritten. Because most of us would not have the same install history, we may all have ended up with a different complement of residual files that now introduce these seemingly random errors.

The programmers have to weigh in whether that is a plausible explanation.

Clear skies, or perhaps we should change that to 'successful Meridian flips'?

Jo
Last edit: 5 years 1 hour ago by Jose Corazon.
5 years 1 hour ago #37110

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