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

My next course of action: purge all KStars and INDI config files (well, store them in a safe place first) and recreate them. New profile, new config of KStars, new download of UCAC stars, etc. See if that helps.

All configuration files were backed up and I created a new profile. I discovered two strange things though:
- In KStars under Data -> download New Data it is shown that all previously downloaded additional data catalogs are installed, including Tycho2 and USNO, but this is not the case. It seems I have overlooked a config file. Can someone tell me where that info is stored?
- When trying to set the Park Position, the EQMod driver crashed. Everytime I started KStars and then Ekos and then INDI, the EQMod driver would crash. It turned out that the ParkData.xml file was corrupt and when I restored the one from the back up, the driver didn't crash anymore.

Moreover, I just (re?) discovered this config setting:



and I don't remember if it was ticked or not. Anyway, I am good to go for tonight and I will report tomorrow if all is back to normal now or not.


Happy meridian flipping!

Wouter

Good point, Jasem, I have to think about how to abort safely. Do you have the log file available?

Wolfgang

It should't matter, but good to know that it was set.

Wolfgang

Ah pity. Well I don’t remember if it was set before or not but now it is. I am running a new test now. No scheduler, only the Sequence queue because Jasem reported problems with it as well. Last night the first meridian flip went OK but the second not (both were done via the Scheduler) so let’s see how tonight goes.


Wouter

I am trying to reproduce it in a test environment. Could you please post your scheduler file where the MF failed?

Wolfgang

Without a scheduler, there will be no re-alignment. Guiding should be restarted if it is running in that moment when the MF starts.

Wolfgang

Thanks! It is attached to one of my previous comments. The one with the logs of last night.

Wouter, I think I found your problem. During the meridian flip, the scheduler runs into a timeout:The Scheduler does not know about the meridian flip, the meridian flip is handled by the mount module in cooperation with the capture module.

That explains why the capture sequence is started from the beginning and at the same time why there is no re-alignment. The latter is the case since the scheduler thinks that the capture module runs into a timeout and tries to restart the capture.

I have to find out, what the root cause for this timeout is.

Wolfgang

OK I forgot about that so thanks for reminding me. I am running a scheduled job on M 67 now. It will culminate at 21:41 CET and I expect the meridian flip 30 minutes later. I’ll let you know how it went.

I mean the scheduler file, not the capture file.