Continued crashing

[astronut892010]

My BYE premium has a tendency to crash fairly frequently after the first few images.  I am connected, tracking, and capturing, then suddenly the screen freezes and I get a notice from Windows that BYE has stopped working and offers a choice to wait or close the program.  My only real response is to close since it does not respond.  Can someone help me with diagnostics or other info to help me troubleshoot this.  It has been frustrating to say the least.  Thank you. I really like the product and have had a blast using it.

[astronut892010]

Guylain and Rick,

I will follow your most recent instructions.  The USB 2.0 port, only have one, is used for the mount.  It was particularly twitchy on any other port.  But, I have since switched to a 6-ft cable and may give it a go on one of the USB 3.0 ports.  The guide camera, a ZWO ASI290, supports USB 3.0 and has a connection for such, but I am using a USB 2.0 cable to match the USB 2.0 I am using for the Canon 80D.  I thought about the USB port conflict problem, but I do not see what other choices I have.  I only have 3 USB ports.  I have a USB 3.0 powered hub I originally purchased for this setup, but had too many other comm problems with it and I only need 3 connections at this time.  I will see what tests I can run in the near future.  The quick turnaround while doing field testing helped significantly, thanks.

[admin]

Okay, you are troubleshooting an issue so remove all devices (include usb hubs) and keep only the camera connected directly into a computer usb hub and run a test.  Baby steps until we find the root cause, if it works then start adding one device at a time.

 

[astronut892010]

I did that test already and could not reproduce the problem.  None of the activities involved a USB hub.  I had the computer and camera only set up on Saturday and could not get it to recur after several hours.  That was varying only cable length.  No other software was running beyond BYE.  Then last night I set up the full configuration with the shorter cables and gave it a trial run.  As mentioned had an early crash.  I followed your recommendations, changing settings etc. which helped immensely.  I will continue to change the next items, one at a time, as you suggest.  Already had it working with nothing else in the system with the short cable and tried to give it a try last night and here we are.  Thanks for your product and patience as well.

[admin]

26 minutes ago, astronut892010 said:

I did that test already and could not reproduce the problem.  None of the activities involved a USB hub.  I had the computer and camera only set up on Saturday and could not get it to recur after several hours.  That was varying only cable length.  No other software was running beyond BYE.  Then last night I set up the full configuration with the shorter cables and gave it a trial run.  As mentioned had an early crash.  I followed your recommendations, changing settings etc. which helped immensely.  I will continue to change the next items, one at a time, as you suggest.  Already had it working with nothing else in the system with the short cable and tried to give it a try last night and here we are.  Thanks for your product and patience as well.

Keep us posted.

[astronut892010]

Making another test run tonight.  Here are the changes I made.  Canon 80D connected to USB 2.0 port.  Mount and guide camera connected via USB 2.0 cables to USB 3.0 ports.  Downloading RAW only.  Reset all settings to default.  SD card removed from camera.  Due to cloudy weather, guiding and imaging Capella through the clouds.  Discovered another possible problem.  One symptom was an occasional pop-up notification that the Canon 80D is connected and Windows asks what I want to do everytime it connects.  However, I had not disconnected the cable or powered off the device.  In talking with another friend, he mentioned power management control of USB ports by Windows 10.  I disabled the USB selective suspend under my power management profile under Advanced power settings for all profiles so that Windows does not disable power to my USB ports.  Currently at 140 minutes of 180 minute imaging pass doing 60 second subs of Capella and no crashes so far similar to last night.

[admin]

oh, that could explain a lot of things.  Also, make sure the laptop hard disk is set to never go to sleep too.

EDIT: However, if the camera does disconnect that usually leaves a trace in the log files and I don't recall seeing this so it may just have been a coincidence in your latest test run.

[astronut892010]

The test run tonight worked well apart from some mount problems.  Into my last run of the evening, it stopped tracking.  But the good news, the camera kept firing and downloading.  Maybe, just maybe, this problem is solved.  Time will tell.  It got VERY, VERY humid.  Not full fog or rain, but close.  I will make some more test runs over the next week or two as weather permits and let you know.  Thanks for the tip about the hard drive too.

[s3igell]

Unfortunately, you are learning the Hard Way that USB may be "Universal" - but it can still be fraught with Problems.  And while USB3 is reportedly 100% Backwards-compatible with USB2, that depends on the combo of Interface Chips (which generation of USB3, how CHEAP in Production and Quality Control), and Driver Quality.  Also how much Power is available vs how much required, Cable Lengths, Wire Sizes, Connector Quality, and even Data Volume. 

And...  You mentioned an ASI290 Guide Camera - ASI is notorious for driving their Camera USB Ports at FULL SPEED.  That is why they REPEATEDLY advise Users to lower the USB-Rate setting to it's lowest (40%) whenever any Connectivity Issues are brought up on the ZWO Web Forums.  And PHD2 OpenPHDForum guys keep reminding everyone to run PHD2 v2.6.3 or 2.6.4 in order to ensure you have the latest ASI Drivers for PHD2.

[astronut892010]

I have been able to run successfully for a few nights now without any more intermittent errors which would cause BYE to end my imaging session.  Thanks for the help and it looks like the problem is solved for the moment.  Cheers and clear skies.