Hi, I am new to SGP, and I could use some help. Last night I started a sequence at 22:50 that was scheduled to run 03:40. When I came down in the morning, my laptop had rebooted. I have no idea when this happened.
I checked the windows reliability log, and it did not flag any crashed programs. This is a reliable computer that has never done this before, and I have not installed any new programs. The log file shows the sequence starting, complaining that the guide star is lost, and that is the last line in the log file at 23:06. I am not sure why it is trying to guide before the sequence start time.
Any thoughts on how to proceed? I hate to lose any more good nights. My equipment list is:
CGX mount with ASCOM controll
PHD2 with ASI120M camera
STF-8300 camera
PlateSolve 2
The most obvious possibility is that Windows auto rebooted after installing an update - I had that happen a coupled of weeks ago. You can set the time of day during which Windows is allowed to do this. After it happened to me I set to daylight hours.
I seens that Dell did indeed run an update at 02:00, but I find it difficult to believe that it would just kill open programs. It has never done that before, but that seems the most likely scenario. It is good to know that SGP does not have a history of bringing down the OS. I will pursue the settings in Windows.
I had a similar problem with the computer re-booting when running a SGP sequence. After doing a lot of troubleshooting, it turned out to be a problem with one of the hardware drivers (specifically, the focuser driver). It might be worth it to make sure you have all of the latest drivers installed for your equipment. If there is more than one driver available for any of your equipment, you might try using the alternative driver instead. Hope that helps.
Thanks Wes. As it turns out I have just added a low budget focuser, and this was the first time that I tried to use it. I will see if I can duplicate the problem if we ever have another clear night.
Yes that’s why many of us run W10 Pro and have updates disabled using group policy. It can and does force restarts if you don’t tell it specifically not to.