I have been running kstars directly on an Rpi 4 at the telescope over an ethernet link with everything loaded on the Rpi (solver and files, etc). Because I have had some dropouts to the Rpi, I recently (last night) switched to running only the Server (connected to all the device including "astrometry") on the Rpi and running Kstars 3.5.0 on a Laptop, connected over ethernet cable. All the connections show up, I can take images and have them saved to the large USB stick on the Rpi. The index files for the solver on the Rpi (I have both ASTAP and Solve-field) are on this USB Stick.

Now I am trying to run the solver from the laptop, but I want to run it remotely on the Rpi, as that has worked and it was very fast in the past. I have the remote button checked in the align window, the solver is connected and enabled in the Indi Control Panel (with the location pointing to the solver location on the Rpi for the program. But as soon as I try to capture and solve (do nothing) the solver fails and goes disabled?

There must be a way to do this, but I have tried to change options for the solver, but it does not seem to let me access the directory on the RPi where the index files are located. I will keep trying, but if anyone knows how to do this I would really appreciate and answer.

thanks,
Ron

Well, I was able to download the index files to the Laptop for the StellaSolver and get it working. I am very new to Kstars 3.5.0 and still figuring out how to get everything to work and learn it at the same time. I believe I have PhD2 on the Rpi working ( I had to switch to Indi camera) to get images from my Lodestar on screen at the laptop, but once I did that it seems fine.

I went thru the PA routine a couple of times to night and while it worked, the numbers that show up for the degree's to rotate the scope thru seem way off. If nobody responds to this I may post this issue separately.

thanks,
Ron

I think the way to do this is to run the whole package (including KStars, not just INDI) on the Pi and just use the laptop to remote in via VNC, TeamViewer, AnyDesk, etc. This is what I do and it works very well. The other advantage is that you can shut down the laptop once you have a sequence running and it just runs all night on the pi while you sleep.

The client-server split puts the solver in the client. If you're running the client (KStars) on the laptop, that's where your solving will happen.

Thanks,
That is what I was previously doing and it worked fine, except I would get occasional dropouts with connection to the server and Kstars/Ekos would stop. I assume it was because of trying to do too much on the Rpi. I would get thru PA, focus, start guiding and imaging (for a couple of hours) and then at some point I would get either a 'memory fork' error or something to cause the connection to the server to drop. I would have to start Kstars/Ekos over again. But I guess if I am still starting the server before I start Kstars on the Rpi, then the devices remain connected the only thing that stops is whatever process was started when the connection dropped.

I was able to download the index files to the laptop for my FOV's (finder and main scope) and run solves from there, so I may just continue to use the RPi as just the indi connection to devices and run Kstars/Ekos on the Laptop. And see if that arrangement is any more 'stable' over time.
thanks,
ron