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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

trouble with eqmod mount disconnecting

  • Posts: 152
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HI knro. Me too.

I have a funny feeling it's not software rather power supply. I ran off battery with no issues. Then I tried off mains power with one of my 12VDC 2A power supplies. Again no issue. Then I tried another mains power supply and the mount wouldn't connect with the same error.

I just completed a brand new power supply from a computer psu. This should give me the cleanest 12VDC @ 17A. So plenty to run everything cleanly.

If the weather is fine over the weekend I'll log everything from start to finish and send through all my logs if I have any problems with anything.

Will see what happens.

Keep up the awesome work.

Regards
6 years 2 weeks ago #24117

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Hi,
the errors look a bit similar to the ones I had about a year ago:
www.indilib.org/forum/mounts/1614-eqmod-...or.html?limitstart=0
I attached a verbose driver log of a full test session back then, maybe that helps:
www.indilib.org/media/kunena/attachments/3593/eqmod_driver.txt
I have not tried it again since then but when I find some time I will check it again and record some logs.

Cheers,
Adam
6 years 2 weeks ago #24121

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It looks clear tonight. I will have logging on from the start.
6 years 2 weeks ago #24146

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So far, tonight, I have captured >150 frames at 15s Lum, and now 60s Red with guiding the whole time. No issues. This is how it goes.

-- added hours later. A great night. Not a single offline incident the whole evening, tracking, dithering, OAG guiding with the 290MM mini, etc...
The only thing I did different that I can think of is I had full debug logging enabled for the mount/EQmod !

I'll take it. Going to leave the logging on and see if I can get it next time.

Jim
Last edit: 6 years 2 weeks ago by Jim. Reason: added updated info later
6 years 2 weeks ago #24157

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hi krno, so I had some time to try the setup with my new clean power supply. The last time i powered up all my gear everything worked flawlessly and I suggested that all the issues were probably due to poor power supply. Unfortunately i dont think this is true.

Ill summaries the issues i encountered and ill attach all the log files.

So i have not updated my PC or RPi3 indiserver from the previous session when everything worked. My laptop (running ubuntu 16.04LTS) and RPi3 (running ubuntu mate 16.04LTS) dont see the internet at all and are purely dedicated to kstars/astro. I only update these devices when i see you have push updates and new features. I use the offline astrometry solver.

I just set up and started everything as i normally do.

The first issue i encountered was my Shoestring BT dongle would not bind to my laptop, wher ein the past it bound straight away. So I had to remove, re-pair and re-trust it again using blueman. And then it still would not bind. So i used bluetoothctl to pair and trust and it worked. Then when i tried to pair it with the blue-man applet it still would not bind. So i open a terminal and used the following: sudo rfcomm bind 0 XX:16:11:08:57:YY 1 to achieve a bluetooth bind. Finally everything connected ok.

I was able to slew to objects etc and the mount and all the other devices connected via rpi indiserver.

I then went to park the mount and it ended up slewing to China, not back to the South Celestial Pole from there it started. Once i unparked the mount it disconnected and threw the same tty cannot connect error i posted before and the bluetooth disconnected. So i had to shut everything down and start from scratch.

And the same thing as above happened again so i packed up to send this report.

anyway i hope the logs flag what the issue may be.

regards
6 years 2 weeks ago #24185
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Last night, with logging on from the start, everything worked without issue again. So far the correlation would be, always run full logging B)

Will leave it on for it to happen again.
6 years 1 week ago #24202

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Ah ! I got the exact same issues as you all with my HEQ5. I had disconnects in the past, with indi from June '17 built from source, but I would relate those to cables and stuff getting in the way of rotation. Plus, the mount would complain about the voltage stability, because it was dropping under 11V too often.

However when I rebuilt the January version of INDI, and proceeded to observe during 5 consecutive nights under 0°C end of February, I started to observe weird disconnection issues precisely like you describe.

The mount and its eqmod driver would work flawlessly during one full night. Mount was parked but powered the whole day, as well as the INDI server. The following night I would have those disconnections without any warning.

Specifically, I remember imaging M42 for 20min, then switching to the Bubble nebula, to the west. The mount disconnected on its slew to the target. Incidentally, it crashed the Atik driver at the same time. Both drivers would restart, but the eqmod driver wasn't able to reconnect to the mount.

At that moment, I restarted the whole indiserver, and for whatever reason, the eqmod driver was able to reconnect the mount. I tested slewing around and it was working. Then I slewed back to Bubble, and the driver lost the mount again with the same messages, with Atik crashed too, roughly at the same coordinates location.

To recover from this situation, I had to turn the mount off and back on again. No amount of effort on indiserver or connection cables would restore functionality.

I'm really puzzled with this issue, my current opinion is that this is a regression, but there are several parameters playing together that are difficult to separate.

-Eric
Last edit: 6 years 1 week ago by Eric.
6 years 1 week ago #24254

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Hi Jasem just to report back, last night was again a bit of a disaster. indi_eqmod_telescope performed ok with no disconnects this time, but the internal guider was not happy and my RPi3 indiserver lost wifi connection to my client straight after guiding stopped, which ultimately shut everything down. So i had to restart the rpi3 on numerous occasions.

As i said i would do, I logged everything, see attached files.

regards
6 years 1 week ago #24268
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I'm checking another feature (repeat options in the scheduler), but I just had four full days of testing with EQMod Mount and CCD Simulator in my basement.

Not a single disconnection, although test coordinates were spread randmoly over the whole hemisphere.

Quite a few unrelated issues that I'll be working on (scope hitting pier for 4 hours is one of them :S, as well as non-functional watchdog) but nothing at all related to the disconnection problem. I'll add other drivers, increase the size of the test vector and test again in the coming days.

-Eric
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6 years 3 days ago #24513

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I'm now at 7 days of testing. I'm not scheduling jobs 100% of the time, but at least the setup is powered and indiserver is running 24/24.
No disconnections as clear as what was reported were encountered.

I had one short occurrence of read/write glitches which got notified as popups in Ekos, but I wasn't able to relate them to anything in the log :huh:

I had one crash in indi_eqmod_telescope, probably possibly maybe related to a memory leak because indiserver died from an oom directly:
Child process 15952 died
2018-03-28T20:05:50: Driver indi_eqmod_telescope: stderr EOF
2018-03-28T20:05:50: Driver indi_eqmod_telescope: restart #1
2018-03-28T20:05:50: fork: Cannot allocate memory
2018-03-28T20:05:50: good bye

If it makes sense to anyone, here are the last words of indi_eqmod_telescope, nothing really different from the usual 1-second exchange:
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [SCOPE] Compute local time: lst=8.39228421 ( 8:23:32.22) - julian date=2458206.33721594
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [COMM] dispatch_command: ":j1", 4 bytes written
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [COMM] read_eqmod: "=65737C", 8 bytes read
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [SCOPE] GetRAEncoder() = 8156005
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [COMM] dispatch_command: ":j2", 4 bytes written
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [COMM] read_eqmod: "=7F8E9E", 8 bytes read
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [SCOPE] GetDEEncoder() = 10391167
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [SCOPE] Current encoders RA=8156005 DE=10391167
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [ALIGNMENT] Status: Mnt. Algnt. NORTH Date 2458206.337216 encoders RA=8156005 DE=10391167 Telescope RA 15.010909 DEC 79.889322
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [ALIGNMENT]  Direction RA(deg.)  -99.279375 DEC 79.889322 TDV(x -0.028307 y 0.173253 z 0.984470)
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [ALIGNMENT] Failed TransformTelescopeToCelestial: Scope RA=15.0109 Scope DE=79.889322, Aligned RA=15.010909 DE=79.889322
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [COMM] dispatch_command: ":f1", 4 bytes written
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [COMM] read_eqmod: "=301", 5 bytes read
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [COMM] dispatch_command: ":f2", 4 bytes written
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [COMM] read_eqmod: "=011", 5 bytes read
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [SCOPE] GetRAPeriod() = 6
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [SCOPE] GetDEPeriod() = 6
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [SCOPE] CheckMotorStatus() : Axis = 1
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [DEBUG] IsRARunning() = false
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [SCOPE] CheckMotorStatus() : Axis = 2
2018-03-28T20:05:47: EQMod Mount: [DEBUG] IsDERunning() = true

As it was mentioned ealier, it's maybe important to note is that indi_eqmod_telescope has full logs in my test. This swamps the log with 21-line blocks every 1 second, and may alter the realtime environment.

-Eric
6 years 15 hours ago #24632

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I honestly have not had skies good enough to do anything since my last post. I did want to mention that when I had no problems for 2 nights in a row, I, too, was running full logging on the mount. 2 data points is not a pattern, but might be the start of one?
6 years 15 hours ago #24633

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well, I'll check today and run full logs and monitor the memory performance. I don't need good weather, it can be done in broad daylight :D
6 years 2 hours ago #24648

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