tried again tonight, and just turned everything on and connected to my devices asi camera/focuser/filterwheel/ioptron and started ekos snd just left it alone waiting to get dark, and about an hour laster kstars was frozen again without doing anything but start it up.......

so frustrating, was hoping to get some more subs on the heart tonight......

Finding this all a bit depressing. I'm not having the greatest time setting this all up to get anywhere to working. I have StellarMate running on a RPi4 4Gb. Connected to this are my Altair Hypercam 183C ProTEC, Pegasus FocusCube V2, SSAG and EQMod cable hooked up to my HEQ5-Pro mount. My scope is an Altair 102ED-R.

Spent the whole day trying to setup the focusing. Would be good if within the software you could dictate absolute zero when fully retracted. Had so set this up externally with the Pegasus software only for the thing not to realise I had it in reverse. Bottom line a lot of faffing about just to get this going. Next tried to focus my camera during the day using the loop function. It was hit and miss if it worked. Lost the camera most times and had to disconnect within INDI and reconnect tons of time. I couldn't adjust the gain or frame rate satisfactorily. I ran out of time. Finally the scope would not connect within INDI despite the port being registered.

I'm wondering if this is was money wasted or well spent thinking when I purchased this it was kind of plug and play and pretty fool proof. Give me freedom! Don't know weather the RPi4 is coping with all 4 USB plugs taken up despite mount, Hypercam and focused having their own PSU. Only the SAGG is drawing power from the RPi4. My HyperCam does have 2 powered USB on rear but when I plug anything into them the RPi4 doesn't recognize them at all.

I have another 3 days free to play with this. If I don't get it to work by then I think I am just going to use the RPi4 for gaming or something and go back to using APT or SharpCap. So far... Not what I have expected. Who do I speak too about refunds on products not being fit for purpose?

Jacques, I'm terrible sorry to hear about your issues. Let's take this step by step:

1. FocusCube Zero: If the focuser if fully retracted, in INDI control panel, you can set SYNC to to zero. Just put zero and press set and that's it.
2. FocusCube Reverse: Same as above, you can enable/disable reverse direction in INDI Control Panel.
3. Altair: Altair cameras are known to have issues with USB on Raspberry PI. Go to Controls tab and try to reduce USB Speed. Does this help? I will try to share a video of Altair from my observatory (using it as a guide camera from StellarMate on RPI3).
4. EQMod: what error were you specifically getting upon re-connection?

Update: Came back to this, this morning with fresh eyes and a better mood:

I disconnected all the USB cables (4) from my StellarMate. I think perhaps it wasn't happy having all those things connected. I also had problems yesterday with the EQMount driver not recognising the mount. I plugged SSAG and the Pegasus FocusCube V2 USB into rear of the Altair Hypercam 183C ProTEC (it has 2 powered USB ports) and the Hypercam to the USB 3.0 port of the RPi4. I connected the EQMod cable (EQMount) to the free 3.0 USB port. Don't know why I chose this but I did. Booted up the StellarMate.

It takes StellarMate on my RPi4 2mins 37sec to show up as a HotSpot on my Laptop from cold. Seems a lot? It takes a further 31 seconds to establish connection from my Laptop to the StellarMate.

I ran KStars on my laptop and ran Ekos. The INDI control panel showed that the Pegasus DMFC, EQMod mount, Altair AA183CPROTEC and QHY CCD QHY5-M- drivers were loaded and connected (note: I used the QHY CCD QHY5-M- driver instead of the Starshoot driver. This loaded up whilst the Starshoot one did not.). I had a real pig of a time setting up the Focuser. After almost 3 hours I got it to do what I wanted. Seemed like the way I connected everything with the USB made a difference. Whilst I was methodically going through each of the settings within the INDI server for my setup I checked doing boot-ups of the RPi4 and laptop in-between. Until then, all was working using the RPi4 and StellarMate using the hotspot and managing everything via the laptop.

Then suddenly, now, for no unknown reason, although my laptop is connected to Stellarmate running on the RPi4 on hotspot it is now telling me "connection to INDI server at stellarmate.local with port 7624 failed". The log on eKos also states: Warning INDI Web Manager is not online.

Grrrr... I've unplugged all the external equipment to the RPi4 and turned it off. I also rebooted my laptop. Tried connecting again. Same message. Wtf... tell me someone why one minute it will connect and load and NOW it has copped a strop and is not letting me connect??? Has the damned thing gone all corrupt on me???

I hooked the RPi4 up to my HDMI monitor and all there was was a black screen with 'stellarmate' asking for the password. I entered the default 'smate' and tries to do something but then goes back to that black screen asking for password. Password is correct as if I type any other old nonsence it rejects it straight off. I think it has totally crashed. Grrr... double grrr...

I've provided an update. The INDI server was very temperamental in 'saving' my changes in the option tab and often reverted to whatever it previously was without saving. It eventually did what it was told but put up a fight. The I've kind of got everything else working until the RPi4 crashed with a black screen asking for a password. I didn't change anything so put in the default but still crashed to black screen asking password. Putting anything else came up with an error so 'smate' was correct. It just crashed and could not get past this. I am reformatting my SD card and burning an new image.

My times for the Hotspot to appear are similar to yours with both the RPi3 and 4.

Well... I put a new image on the SD card and rebooted and followed reset procedure using my tablet. Got it all working. I kept it on my monitor to see what was happening when I rebooted after restarting and disconnecting the tablet.

The StellarMate loaded up and had the desktop. The Kstar splash screen came on but stopped at loading and froze at satellites.

Not deterred I logged onto Stellarmate via my laptop and it reconnected - despite the splash screen frozen loading satalites. It seem does not to like my setup now and the damned port asking me to disconnect both the EQMod cable and Pergasus cable. It just didn't want to know. Wasn't having it. How simple is it? Follow the screen prompts and nothing seems to save. I managed to get all the components connected but could not save any individual configurations. The Focuser went back to doing nonsense. It would not allow me to set ZERO and it would not allow me to enable me to set backlash. Dropped USB camera speed from 3 to 2, and default resolution, but this too wouldn't be accepted when saved.

A whole 7 hours of my life gone. The INDI control panel does not really like to do what it is supposed to do. Fed up...

jaq1967 You're not alone.

We are going to have our first clear skies in weeks so I decided to get ready to setup everything. I cannot for the life of me get it to capture again using a ZWO ASI120mm. It's recognized at boot and no errors in the INDI control panel.

The odd part was this was all working after creating a new SD image to boot from. I think moving the USB ports or it doesn't like one of the USB cables. I connected the Stellarmate RPi3 and it all works. I feel your frustration.

The ASI120 does not work with Linux, this is known, as it is not supported anymore.... ?

I was able to get the ASI120mm working, for a few moments. I removed my DSLR from the CCD profile and had the 120mm as the guide and the AVX mount.

Started EKOS and tried to capture and solve with the 120mm. It would not capture and showed 3 failed attempts in the INDI control panel.

changed the Capture setting in EKOS from the default 1 second to .1 and suddenly it worked. Disconnect and restart INDI and now it won't work again. It will however capture Subframes. So setting must be incorrect and is not being preserved across restart.

Thought I would peruse the INDI logs, but when I clicked the button in Settings - KStars restarted.

I purchased the ASI120mm as a bundle with Stellarmate and now you're telling me it isn't supported on Linux?

So I am even more confused.

The annoying thing is prior to the SD crashing or going gaga on me I had just almost felt like I was getting somewhere. USB cable setup before it went into this coma was working so assume with no cable changes and a clean image install it would be ok. How wrong was I. It hated it.

Back to Knro's comment:

1. FocusCube Zero: If the focuser if fully retracted, in INDI control panel, you can set SYNC to to zero. Just put zero and press set and that's it.

This may be the case but every time I get a crash with this system the focuser isn't at Zero. The software within INDI or eKos does not allow me to go to negative. It stops at Zero which isn't zero because it crashed somewhere nowhere near where it restarts. This means each time I have to physically get the focuser retracted I need to hook it directly onto my PC and use the Pegasus software to retract the tube and zero it before reaching it back to the RPi4. A very long and boring process. Then, within the INDI software, anything I set and then save it isn't set or saved. Options like enabling backlash are hit and miss. I got it to enable before it had that coma. Now it won't let me even enable it. Same with reducing the USB speed on the Hypercam from 3 to 2. You hit set. Save it. Go back and it's back to 3! Nothing saves. Nothing sets. Nothing works.

I'm thinking of wasting some more money on Amazon in buying a powered USB hub. The whole idea of this was to reduce cables. The RPi4 has 4 USB ports. It should work with the 4 USB cables I have. I assume the fault is not hardware but rather software. So if I haven't more that 4 USB cables I see no reason to buy a hub. It should work.

I have 2 more days to crack this before the RPi4 becomes RiP4 and becomes something more useful - an automated dog biscuit dispenser or other. I'm wasting clear skies frustrating myself with this junk. So far... Not impressed. Maybe ASCOM is the way forward.