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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Potential bug in the Scheduler: mount doesn't get parked when guiding aborted

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Taking a closer look into the logs explains what happens:
[2019-07-15T04:27:02.108 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.scheduler] - "Only aborted jobs left in the scheduler queue, rescheduling those."
...
[2019-07-15T04:27:01.043 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.scheduler] - "Job 'M 27' is now approaching astronomical twilight rise limit at Mon Jul 15 04:27:00 2019 (30 minutes safety margin), marking aborted."
[2019-07-15T04:27:03.044 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.scheduler] - "Sleeping until observation job M 27 is ready at Mon Jul 15 23:45:00 2019..."
[2019-07-15T04:27:03.052 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.scheduler] - "Warning: Job 'M 27' is 19h 17m 57s away from now, you may want to enable Preemptive Shutdown."
Briefly: enable "Preemptive Shutdown" in the EKOS/Scheduler options.

This is exactly a situation that Eric ( @TallFurryMan ) and I are discussing in this enhancement I am working on. From my perspective, setting a job that hits its limits to state "aborted" is not optimal. But there are good arguments to do it, if you want to implement multi-day schedules.

What happens? As soon as all jobs are completed or aborted, the Sceduler re-schedules all aborted jobs. In your case, the M27 job is sent to sleep until next evening.

- Wolfgang
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4 years 8 months ago #41097

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Shouldn't such jobs trigger PARK-WAIT stage and park the mount? That was how it was intended, so why is park wait skipped now?
4 years 8 months ago #41098

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I would prefer the old behavior where if dawn approached then it initiates the shutdown
4 years 8 months ago #41104

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As the log shows, the Preemptive Shutdown option is not selected.

@Wouter: Please select the option, then you will have the desired behavior.
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4 years 8 months ago #41105

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OK I didn't expect that that was necessary since I did check the Park Mount option in the Scheduler. I guess this means that the Park Mount option only is executed once all jobs have finished which seems counter-intuitive to me. But I'll make sure that that option is also checked next time. Thanks!
4 years 8 months ago #41118

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Scheduler will try (hopefully) hard to image your targets, even if that means scheduling observations over multiple nights. So yes, preemptive shutdown is the solution. Do you think it is a misnomer and we should fix that? There's also a warning in the scheduler, but that warning does only appear when the sleep situation occurs, so not very helpful.

-Eric
The following user(s) said Thank You: Wouter van Reeven
4 years 8 months ago #41167

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Also I think we should enforce the completion time of scheduled jobs. If a job gets late, it should be allowed to continue for some time, but at some point we should abort it. That indeed poses the question of when to resume it, and that is one of the points in the exchange mentioned.

-Eric
4 years 8 months ago #41168

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No, I don't think it's a misnomer. Despite my extensive use of Ekos I still get confused when certain configuration options are in the screen itself, some are in the KStars preferences and some are hidden away in a popup that can be accessed by going to the corresponding tab in Ekos and clicking on an Options button. Perhaps the Ekos configuration options in the KStars preferences should be taken away from there and merged into Ekos, either by adding popup accessible via an Options button or modifying an existing popup. Then at least all configuration options are directly accessible from within Ekos.

Anyway, if I encounter an unexpected situation again then I will go over all configuration settings (including the ones in the KStars preferences) to see if any may solve the situation.


Wouter
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4 years 8 months ago #41170

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Thanks, your report is helpful.

-Eric
The following user(s) said Thank You: Wouter van Reeven
4 years 8 months ago #41196

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And thank all of you for your continuing efforts to improve this already very fine piece of software!


Wouter
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4 years 8 months ago #41198

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What about if we separate the number of iterations from the option of a certain completion time? Quite frequently I have the situation where I would like to complete a certain amount of captures for the first target, but finishing this latest by a certain time. And then - as soon as possible - continuing with the next target.
4 years 8 months ago #41260

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Last night I ran into the same situation and I confirm that enabling Preemptive Shutdown indeed was the solution. Thanks very much once more!


Wouter
Last edit: 4 years 7 months ago by Wouter van Reeven.
4 years 7 months ago #41481

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