BYE freezes up

[Vagabond]

windows 7, canon 450d......bye FREEZES UP.  Starts with the clock skipping seconds from temporarily freezing up.  Then it just freezes, and does not allow me to close it out, I need to manually shut down pc and reboot to have it happen all over again.  I made sure windows was up to date.  Any suggestions?

[admin]

Can you tell me a bit more about what your are doing?  Are you in imaging mode, in frame&focus, planetary, etc...

 

Send me the log files at support@otelescope.com.

 

The log files are in "My Pictures\BackyardTEMP\logs".

 

Regards,

[astroman133]

What are you doing when BYE hangs?  Frame & Focus? Imaging? Drift Align? Planetary capture?

 

Have you tried killing BYE with the Window Task Manager.  That would certainly be faster than re-booting.

 

What are the specs of your PC? like processor, memory, disk, display

[astroman133]

Funny...your post and mine ask for much of the same info. You are just a faster typist than me!

[Vagabond]

ASUS PC......Windows 7.......Pentium dual t4300 @ 210.......4 gig RAM....OS 64bit.....HD 300 GB, half free

 

It seems to have a lag in the clock, kind of temporarily freezing up.  And then as I am poking around trying to learn it, I notice nothing is happening, only to notice the clock has stopped and there is no response.

[admin]

I got the log files, it seems his camera is not providing the live view frames and it leads to BYE not responding.  The big question is why the live view frame are not supplied... or why BYE can't read it. 

 

I'll continue to dig in the log files in hope that I can see something else.

 

Regards,

[johnschnupp]

I had very similar issues happen to me when I was shooting the recent Venus, M45, Haydes conjunction last week.  I noticed that the problem seemed to occur when I made changes to the shooting parameters,  i.e. number of exposures, exposure time, f/ stop or ISO.  It got to the point that it was repeatible enough that I was changing the parameters one at a time to troubleshoot but I could never seem to get it to reliably repeat.  It probably locked up on me 10 times oe more.  One thing I did notice is that the little timer clock/wheel in the upper right would start and then freeze when it was in about the 4:00 position, just before the exposure countdown timer would start.  It seemed like it might be a communication issue, not sure if it is BYE, Win7 or EOS 60D.  I'm running Win7, BYE 3.1.0 Premium and EOS 60D.  Using an older IBM T400 laptop.

[admin]

I had very similar issues happen to me when I was shooting the recent Venus, M45, Haydes conjunction last week.  I noticed that the problem seemed to occur when I made changes to the shooting parameters,  i.e. number of exposures, exposure time, f/ stop or ISO.  It got to the point that it was repeatible enough that I was changing the parameters one at a time to troubleshoot but I could never seem to get it to reliably repeat.  It probably locked up on me 10 times oe more.  One thing I did notice is that the little timer clock/wheel in the upper right would start and then freeze when it was in about the 4:00 position, just before the exposure countdown timer would start.  It seemed like it might be a communication issue, not sure if it is BYE, Win7 or EOS 60D.  I'm running Win7, BYE 3.1.0 Premium and EOS 60D.  Using an older IBM T400 laptop.

 

I doubt that it is the same thing, but we never know.

 

Send me the log files and I'll check.

 

Regards,

[johnschnupp]

I just got some feedback from a Facbook group.  Someone mentioned that they had a similar thing happed when they used a new USB cable.  In my case I was also using a new USB cable.  My original cable used for testing was a short cable that I had lying around the house.  In preperation for mounting the CGEM on a pier I got a longer from Amazon.  Could very well be the cable.  Is there any hope of the log files pointing to a communication problem due to the cable?

[admin]

Oh yes, a long cable does bring issues.

 

How long was your new cable?  Any longer than 15 feet you should get an active repeater cable.  My rule of thumb is any longer than 10 feet

 

Regards,

[johnschnupp]

My new cable is an Amazon Basics USB 2.0 6ft cable, which should not have been a problem with cable length.  I just sent the log files.  There were several so I zipped them into one compressed file. 

[astroman133]

I use this 16 ft active USB extension cable to connect a powered hub that is hung on my pier to my PC in the warm room.  I have my mount, focuser, guide camera, and imaging camera all connected to the hub and active to the computer at the same time.  I use multiple combinations of imaging and guide cameras, including QSI583, Canon T5i, QHY 10 Pro for imaging and Atik Titan and SBIG STi for guiding. All combinations work with that hub and cable.

[admin]

My new cable is an Amazon Basics USB 2.0 6ft cable, which should not have been a problem with cable length.  I just sent the log files.  There were several so I zipped them into one compressed file. 

 

Hi John,

 

Thanks for the log files, I have reviewed them.  I all cases the camera froze after receiving the start BULB command.

 

2015-04-14 21:35:53,638 [CameraTakePictureOnMessageRecieved] DEBUG - TAKE PICUTRE ::: Shutter(MANUAL) Av(f/4) Duration(4.0) Iso(1600) Quality(IMAGE_RLF+) Mirror(0) SaveTo(PC+CARD)

2015-04-14 21:35:54,147 [CameraTakePictureOnMessageRecieved] INFO  - Running (throw): EDSDK.EdsSendCommand(CameraRef, 4, 65539)

 

This is indicative of either a bad cable or a usb hub/bus being overloaded with data.  In one case last year a similar issue was traced back to the camera being defective.  But most likely it is due to a bad cable or hub.

 

Regards,

[admin]

Oh, another thing... I see you have a lens, make sure it is set to manual focus because if it is set to auto focus and it can't focus... well that may cause this behavior as well

 

Regards,

[johnschnupp]

I see you found the thread.  It it possible that the cable has issues, it would not be the first brand new cable that I've seen be bad, I see that sort fo thing all the time in my field service job.  The only thing I had connected to the USB ports was the EOS 60D, so I think that overloading the USB was probably not an issue. 

 

Yes, I was shooting with a standard Canon lens.  I know that it was in auto mode so that I could control it with the focusing controls, it is very possible that I did not switch the lens back to manual mode for the imaging session.  I tried to adjust the focus with the controls in BYE with the lens in manual but that did not seem to work so I switched to autofocus.  The more I think back on it, the more I think you are correct about the lens being left in auto mode.

 

This was the first real under the stars use.  I'm trying to things systematically and one piece at a time so as not to make trouble shooting problems too complex.  Another time or two with the DSLR on a tripod to make sure I have the basics, then on to the scope/mount for practising with dithering before intergrating PHD/guiding.

 

Thanks for you help.

[johnschnupp]

Rick, that is my long term plan too...just taking little baby steps to get there

[astroman133]

John,

 

I am glad that you have a path forward.

 

Just one comment.  You cannot dither without autoguiding.  I would suggest that you may benefit from guiding without dithering before adding dithering.  Guiding will give you better results for exposures longer than 90 seconds. Once you are comfortable with guiding then adding dithering is pretty simple.  However, before guiding will work you need to get a very good polar alignment.  Guiding will NOT adjust for drift caused by a less-then-very-good polar alignment.  Fortunately PHD2 has a pretty good drift alignment tool that can help you nail the polar alignment.  Of course this all assumes that you have used BYE's FWHM or HFD to achieve critical focus of the DSLR.

 

So, my suggestion of your next baby steps is:

 

1) nail the focus

2) polar alignment

3) autoguiding

4) dithering

 

Good luck!

[johnschnupp]

Update on my problem with BYE freezing.

 

Tried some more tripod shots on the evening of 4/21. I was using the same USB cable as before and the USB connection was to the same port on my laptop.  This time I made 100% sure to have the lens switch to M...I checked, re-checked and triple checked it before taking a picture.  On the very first frame it froze up.

 

This time I reconnected the cable to a different USB port on the laptop and restarted BYE.  I continued shooting (mostly single frames) for the next hour.  I shot 42 frames with multiple changes to various settings both in BYE and also some white balance changes on the camera.  Never had another case of BYE freezing after starting a shot.  I even went so far as to start shooting with the lens in Auto focus and never had a problem.  Looks like my real problem may be an issue with one of my USB ports on my laptop. 

 

I did have one other interesting thing happen and am going to start a new topic

[admin]

Thanks John for the detail report.

[ZeroID]

.......This time I reconnected the cable to a different USB port on the laptop and restarted BYE.  I continued shooting (mostly single frames) for the next hour.  I shot 42 frames with multiple changes to various settings both in BYE and also some white balance changes on the camera.  Never had another case of BYE freezing after starting a shot.  I even went so far as to start shooting with the lens in Auto focus and never had a problem.  Looks like my real problem may be an issue with one of my USB ports on my laptop. 

 

Not unusual. I support a fleet of over 6-700 laptops and 4-500 desktops and quite often find one or more USB ports which seem to not function as well as others. I think in some cases, particularly for desktops that the front ports are under powered voltage\current wise while the rear mounted ports seem to have better power output. I always charge my mobile or USB device from the rear ports for that reason.  Laptops seem to suffer from similar problems although the front\rear seperation seems to not be so clear cut. Why this power difference affects the signalling capability I am not sure but I have seen it enough times to be convinced.

 

Another point is to always use the same port on a USB hub from the same device each time. ie if your camera works on the #1 port then make sure it is always plugged into #1 port. Stops USB port numbering going off the scale so the PC always finds the camera at the same address.