How to Begin Debugging

I have had for a number of months now 100% flawless interactions between ACP/Scheduler and my dome. Zero issues.

So Yesterday I go to Scheduler and run a simulation. Nothing else is different.

Today ACP cannot connect to shutter even though the ASCOM server is sitting there and all works fine. I can connect to Dome server with POTH and all is fine. With ACP now Dome sbutter times out!

Of course this happens with the fist 3 day run of great skies in months.. So in ACP I connect manually and then in Dome button close then open then stop motion to get a clear slaving situation. Smells like crazy driver stuff out of no where.

Before this point tonight I reinstalled both the ASCOM dome driver and reloaded rotator/shutter firmware. Again.. outside of ACP all seems perfect and the setup has after all been rock solid with no changes.

Right now weather is for sure fine so I'm just going to get data tonight. Scheduler is primed and ready to go (sleeping till dark right now).

I know it is nuts but somehow asking scheduler for a simulation run yesterday is the only thing out of my normal "it just works" experience.

What i am asking is guidance on how to begin the process of running this down!

Thanks to the videos I do know where all the logs live. I have tried to suppress MS updates but you never know.

The nights runs should begin in about 15 minutes. Shutdown tomorrow might be interesting.

This smells to me like MickySoft has messed with my drivers. The odd thing is why might POTH be 100% happy and ACP not?

Tomorrow I'll redo dome/shutter firmware once again.

Sorry about the ramble. Hey!1 see ya at AIC!!

Ron

Hi Ron, glad to hear it's been working well for a while.

There's one thing I'd like to clarify from your description.

Quote:

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Today ACP cannot connect to shutter even though the ASCOM server is sitting there and all works fine. I can connect to Dome server with POTH and all is fine. With ACP now Dome sbutter times out!

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ACP doesn't "connect to the shutter" - that's completely internal to the ASCOM driver. If this is a problem with the rotator board not being able to communicate with the shutter board, then that might be a driver or firmware issue rather than an ACP issue, although I've had some pretty odd stuff going on myself with ACP lately (almost certainly related to MS updates).

I like to eliminate as much software as possible when troubleshooting, and I generally drop down to PowerShell. Can you try these commands in PowerShell for me?

Quote:

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$dome = New-Object -ComObject ASCOM.NexDome.Dome
$dome.Connected = 1

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And that should be enough to get you connected. If not, then I'll need a log file...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tim Long

Hi Ron, glad to hear it's been working well for a while.

There's one thing I'd like to clarify from your description.



ACP doesn't "connect to the shutter" - that's completely internal to the ASCOM driver. If this is a problem with the rotator board not being able to communicate with the shutter board, then that might be a driver or firmware issue rather than an ACP issue, although I've had some pretty odd stuff going on myself with ACP lately (almost certainly related to MS updates).

I like to eliminate as much software as possible when troubleshooting, and I generally drop down to PowerShell. Can you try these commands in PowerShell for me?



And that should be enough to get you connected. If not, then I'll need a log file...

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HI Tim,Thanks. Here is the full story:


1.) I always start a session by first using powershell to launch dome server using the $dome command. I then also connect in the powershell as well. - This step is completely normal.

I like having the dome server remainng after morning shutdown for quick inspection of battery state.



2.) I typically next launch ACP and connect weather server - Completely normal.



3.) Launch Scheduler and then check to start. - Startup proceeds normally though as the telescope and dome connect the little Dome light flashes yellow continuously and never stops. - Normally this flashes once or twice and goes to gray. Startup completes and scheduler reports a serious shutter condition. However!! In startupobslog no mention is made of any problem!!!



After startup script ends I can click on the Dome button and then close button therein. System asks if a force close is desired and after this dome button is green giving me control of shutter in ACP.



I can then open dome using dome tool in ACP. AFter opening completes I must hit the stop motion button inside ACP Dome popup to enable slaving. NexDome server remains perfectly normal all of the time and if I happen to use a client like POTH everything is 100% normal all of the time.



After startup in this fashion a complete night of excellent data was acquired and at 6:42am the scheduler ran the shutdown script which ran completely normally. Dome was parked of charging tabs and shutter closed. I watched shutdown. The shutter button turned to green after closure and did not flash yellow. This tells me that the problem is totally related to the act of connecting not function of shutter.



Yesterday at the first hint of issues I:

1.) ran repair from Nexdome installer and reloaded both firmware.

2.) Reinstalled ACP.



These reinstall steps changed nothing.



Connecting POTH is 100% fine. I tried to let ACP connect through POTH which does work but the shutter issues remain exactly the same.



Like I said the NexDome server is perfectly happy and normal and I have left everything running.



tonight will once again be wicked-clear and weather safe so I plan to run again dusk til dawn but during the day will look at things a bit more. I have MS updates off but I do not trust them. I'll try and explore update history today.




Observatory computer remains on (not so warm today!) and NexDome server remains running perfectly normally.


The REALLY odd thing is that while Scheduler reports serious problem and look in the startup log for info the startup log looks perfectly normal with NO MENTION!! of any issues!!! I'm attaching a zip with all of the logs (NexDome logs included) to this post. I am pretty certain this issue which came out of the blue resides in ACP's connect query routine. Once again. MS updates I have turned off I suspect have crept in here.

Today before night I will look to see how weater-script plays. The fact that as i watched shutdown run real-time this morning and saw a green dome button after closure means my startup script from state of telescope.connected being true might be OK. If this is the case things will be more or less functionally OK except for the convoluted startup dance.

Best,
Ron

I forgot to include a couple of items.. This has my startup script (which has run fine for a very long time) and also two startup logs.. The first one time-wise is the exact startup where the error occurred. The 2nd one (also in previous zip) was run from a state of telescope already connected.

I looked at MS update history. On 9-26 MS silently and against my wishes installed a bunch of stuff. Everything has been fine since then (several good nights without incident) until yesterday.

Big useful development and also a workaround! If I do a manual startup with ACP alone. Then when shutter hangs open Dome control tool... force close.
Then in dome control tool open shutter. Once open (I see that in NexDome server) click the stop dome motion button. After a few seconds shutter goes green and all is good to go.

Nothing different here from my report yesterday which is what I did to get a good night's imaging. Now if I do something like slew to a star and run acp-weather dome move properly to charging position and shutter closes, scope parks, etc.. At this point from scheduler run utility test startup. All is 100% fine. Shutter opens without issues and scheduler goes to sleep then disables as I just ran test startup.

What this means to me is with the simple evening startup procedure where I first manually open shutter and get functional I am good to go and weather closures will be properly handled to close/resume on clear.

I really think this needs to be moved to the Windows 10 thread. The Nexdome server is fine. It's just that something is preventing ACP from initially talking to dome properly all of a sudden.

Ron we are out of town I am actually on the road in Northern New Mexico right now. Please don't move this to the Windows 10 section without knowing for sure that is what it is. I'm unable to help you directly at the moment. We are taking a down day today after AAVSO, driving back home tomorrow.

Hi Bob,

Safe travels and no worries. I'll not "touch" anything and just use my workaround. All is fine here for the time being. There are a nest of more unwanted updates sitting I am ignoring. It would be nice to think MS has maybe fixed stuff they broke but I'll ignore those for as long as I can do so.
Ron

Hi Bob,
Had two perfect nights just by using the initial startup workaround. Weather closure/restarts also fine. Today actually initial startup was perfectly normal. Only thing different was the obs PC was on for several hours before startup. Tomorrow I'll look to see it MS once again silently updated something. I think you should of course feel free to look at what is happening but it should be a very low priority. Tim is going to push another dome driver/firmware in the next few days so from that perspective things will change and I so not want to waste your valuable time.

All is well here at R&R Eagle Observatory.

Ron

OK, I'll leave this in your two peoples' hands. Thanks.