ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool Image Download Hanging

If you’re a developer…you should care about such things as it reduces support requests due to confusion.

I am a developer. I’m not the developer of the ZWO ASCOM driver, though, or SGP.

I was trying top be nice, but I’ll just be direct.

You’re derailing my thread which I created to try to work through an issue I’m having with my camera with SGP. I’m not here to be everyone’s conduit of communication to ZWO and I’m not here as a developer of some other software. I’m here to get support for my hobby for software I own. Please stop.

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I am testing right now and so far no problems. I have hooked the camera up to my normal imaging setup which involved 2 USB 3.0 powered hubs and an active USB 3.0 extension cable which is effectively another hub. I’ve made it through 42 images so far without a problem. I have another 19 hours left on this sequence of dark exposures, so I will report back again when it completes if there are still no issues, but it may well have been the cable. Sorry to bother you if that’s the case!

My test was successful, no issues. I believe the USB 3.0 cable I was using was the problem.

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Great it’s working. I just saw a thread on cloudy nights regarding USB 2 vs USB 3 and this camera, perhaps it may shed some light: I finally got it, ASI1600! APT Bias question. - Beginning Deep Sky Imaging - Cloudy Nights

I believe the memory issues have been resolved. Please see this thread if you’re interested in that. For the most part these were generally handled with the ZWO 1.0.2.5 ASCOM driver but still happened very rarely.

Thanks,
Jared

Hi guys,

I received my ASI1600MM-cool yesterday and have been trying to capture some bias frames this morning and am having issues very similar to those reported in this thread.

Using frame & focus I seem to be able to capture an unlimited number of frames without a problem with ‘0 second’ subs. As soon as I try to use the sequencer I run into issues.

I’m using ZWO ASCOM driver v1.0.2.7 and SGP 2.5.1.15. Camera is connected directly to the computer via USB 3, with the supplied cable (no hub). I’ve tried changing the USB limit to 45 and 90, with no effect.

When using 1 second exposures, I can consistently capture the first exposure in the sequence before it fails to download subsequent subs. Using anything less than 1 second has failed to deliver any subs. I get no error messages, nor does the application crash, it just sits there saying “Downloading” in the status bar until I give up.

After failing to download an image using the sequencer, frame & focus is no longer able to download subs. Disconnecting and reconnecting the camera via SGP has no impact. After restarting SGP and connecting the camera I will again be able to use frame & focus.

I’ve also tried putting a 20 second delay in between the capture of 1 second subs, but it still failed to deliver more than the first sub.

I’ve tried once to capture 2x60s exposures with the same result: sequencer delivers 1 sub, fails to download the second.

Due to the fact that fame and focus seems to work flawlessly, but the sequencer does not, I doubt it’s a USB cabling issue like the OP believed was causative of his issues; this definitely seems to be caused by software.

If there’s anything else I can provide to make debugging this easier please let me know.

Cheers,
Lee

According to ZWO web site, the latest driver is 1.3.5.20 for this camera.

http://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/software/

EDIT: Never mind. That’s for non-ASCOM driver. Sorry about that. But you may need 1.3.5.20 to work with ASCOM driver?

Peter

That’s correct, Peter, but I’m referring to their ASCOM driver version, which is 1.0.2.7. I also have the 1.3.5.20 “Camera driver” installed.

EDIT: heh. You snuck in your edit whilst I was writing my response. Yes, I also have 1.3.5.20 installed.

Update: I’ve now been able to (once) capture a zero second sub using the sequencer, so I’m not sure if the exposure length is related.

I’ve also found that if I leave it long enough, I will eventually (after about 8mins) get a message informing me of the camera timeout.

I found the logs, and have attached one, which will hopefully aid in debugging the issue.

sg_logfile_20160611094738.txt (70.7 KB)

I had similar issues in my testing with 1.0.2.5. I havnt tested with .7 but I will try to tomorrow.

Leave the USB limit at 45. Higher can work but I would start getting random failures the higher I went. I could also duplicate this in other capture apps. Also it doesn’t seem to make much difference.

When you get into that “first frame works, others fail” you need to reboot. This seemes to be directly linked with upping the USB Limit. Unplugging the camera did not work. Only thing to fix it was a reboot, like the low level driver was in an odd state.

I’ll grab the latest ascom driver and see if that changes things. With 1.0.2.5 things were pretty stable as long as I left the USB Limit alone.

Thanks
Jared

Thanks Jared, appreciate the swift response.

USB limit of 90 is default for USB 3, and I believe recommended by ZWO – I tried dropping it to 45, rather than increasing it to 90.

I just downloaded SharpCap and, without rebooting, have successfully captured 200 bias frames and am currently capturing darks. I was using USB limit of 90 with SharpCap.

This suggests to me that the issue is either an integration issue between ZWO’s ASCOM driver and SGP, or an SGP bug.

Thanks again,
Lee

Maybe that’s changed in the new driver? Default is definitely 45 in 1.0.2.5 for usb3 and 75 for usb2.

Jared

It’s possible I’m mistaken. I’m somewhat notorious for having a terrible memory :slight_smile: Thanks again Jared, really appreciate the support!

I am also having a download issue with SGP and an ASI1600mm cool. I am a new user trying SGP out for the first time. I can connect the camera and set up a sequence, but on running the sequence the program hangs after downloading the first image. I have tried with the latest version (2.5.1.15) and a previous version. I have no problem using the camera with Firecap and ImagesPlus Camera Control.
My system is a Windows 8.1 laptop with USB3 ports.

More info
Also hangs on first download or after first download with ASI178mc
Works fine with Canon T3i
log has lines (exposure is 5s, I kill sequence after 30 s with no activity):
[6/11/2016 12:44:34 PM] [DEBUG] [Sequence Thread] Entering super dangerous loop to await image completion…
[6/11/2016 12:44:34 PM] [DEBUG] [Sequence Thread] TEMP - Current Event16: 0
[6/11/2016 12:45:06 PM] [DEBUG] [Main Thread] User requested sequence abort…

Sadly I get the same bad behavior with 1.0.2.7 but 1.0.2.5 works fine. I’ll contact ZWO and see what changed.

Thanks,
Jared

Ahh. I wondered if that might be the case. I tried to find 1.0.2.5 but they don’t appear to have prior releases on their site.

Cheers,
Lee

Actually this seems somewhat random. Back on 1.0.2.7 w/SGP 2.5.1.15 and everything is working just fine. But I was having failures earlier…

Maybe just try rebooting and leave the ascom settings alone and see what happens ?

Jared

I love random bugs, always my favourite to debug :smiley:

I tried rebooting and leaving the USB limit at 45, but could only get the first image in the sequence. I rebooted again and set the USB limit back to 90 and still could only get the first image in the sequence.

Cheers,
Lee