Planner: How to setthe "ACP drive?"

[Mike Dodd]

After six months dark due to equipment damaged by a nearby lightning strike, my observatory is again operational, and I'm planning an imaging session for tomorrow. I'm using Planner 4.2.6 on a Windows 10 Pro PC in my home office (not the observatory PC where ACP is installed).

This PC is new to me. On the former PC, when I created a plan, Planner put it in my Documents folder, C:\Users\mike\Documents\ACP Astronomy\Plans. But now Planner defaults to a Documents folder on OneDrive. If I point to the desired Documents folder, Planner warns me, "Saving this observing plan outside your ACP Plans folder will make it non-portable." The only folder I can choose that doesn't elicit this warning is C:\Users\mike\OneDrive\Documents\ACP Astronomy\Plans.

I have uninstalled OneDrive software, but can't delete the OneDrive folder.

I How can I tell Planner to forget about the OneDrive Documents folder, and save my plans to my regular Documents folder? I don't see anything in Preferences to set this.

Thanks.

--- Mike

[Bob Denny]

Ahhhh you let OneDrive "hijack" your system's Documents folder. I naively did the same thing on one of my Windows 10 systems, and it drives me so crazy. I spent a bunch of time on the phone with MS on how to unwind this, and bottom line is that they told me a bunch of stuff that originally didn't work at all, then different stuff seemed crazy so I gave up.

Unfortunately Planner calls Windows for the path to the user's "Documents" folder, and OneDrive modified this in the OS' settings. If you look in that OneDrive\Documents folder you should see the usual ACP stuff, Images, Plans, Logs.

However, once you save a plan anywhere, Planner should go back there afterward, even after a restart. Are you not seeing this?

[Mike Dodd]

However, once you save a plan anywhere, Planner should go back there afterward, even after a restart. Are you not seeing this?

Yes, without dusk flats. But if i have dusk flats enabled, it still tells me that the flat plan file will be non-portable, and it includes the full path name in the #duskflats directive. Normally it includes just the flats filename. See the attached screen shot.Snap24.jpg

[Bob Denny]

Oh, yeah, ugh. Thank you OneDrive (I didn't have a crystal ball back then to predict that OneDrive would hijack Documents). Let me noodle on this, it's evening today. Gad!

[Dick Berg]

Hi Mike,

I hope you've been well since our last conversation a long time ago! Here's something to look at. Maybe it will help. There are a lot of suggestions online if you google "OneDrive hijacks My Documents." This is one of them:

https://superuser.com/questions/1675...ed-by-onedrive

The first response may work for youi. I found that location in my registry, and it has the correct placement for my My Documents folder. Let me know what you found at that registry location!

NOTE: There are two "fixes" suggested in the above site. The first for when you have uninstalled OneDrive, the second if you still have OneDrive and can reach its settings.

[Mike Dodd]

Thanks, Dick. I confirmed that I have uninstalled OneDrive, then made the registry change suggested in #1.

indeed, Planner now opens my normal Documents folder when I save the plan. But it also gives me the warning about the flat filename being non-portable because it's outside ACP's Plans folder (see screen shot). How does Planner know about ACP's Plans folder?

The #duskflats directive in my plan looks like this:
;WARNING: The following file path/name is not portable.
#duskflats C:\Users\mikey\Documents\ACP Astronomy\Plans\xxx-flats.txt ; Acquire flat fields at dusk

The problem is that full path to my office PC's Documents folder. I need just the filename, no path. Planner used to do that, which is why I'm surprised at this behavior.

--- Mike

[Dick Berg]

Mike, Wish I could help you here. I don't even know what "non-portable" means. I'm glad that hint worked for you for the saving location.

[Mike Dodd]

"Non-portable" means that the full path to the flat file in the observing plan points to my office PC's drive, so that path won't necessarily be valid on the observatory PC.

Formerly, Planner put only the flat file name, no path, e.g., #duskflats xxx-flats.txt, so the plan would run on any PC because the plan and the flat file were both in the same place.

--- Mike

[Dick Berg]

I understand non-portable now.

I just created this plan in Planner, checking the "dusk flats" box at the bottom. I couldn't see where any file name for the flats might have been entered. My plan would expect to use the defaultflat.txt file.

Are you using Planner 4.2.6?

[Mike Dodd]

You (I) don't specify the flat file name in Planner; Planner uses the plan file name and adds "-flats" to it, then creates the file.

Your plan has this line:
#duskflats ; Acquire flat fields at dusk

My plans created by Planner used to have this line:
#duskflats xxx-flats.txt ; Acquire flat fields at dusk

Now they have this line (note the full path):
#duskflats C:\Users\mikey\Documents\ACP Astronomy\Plans\xxx-flats.txt ; Acquire flat fields at dusk

I don't know why your Planner didn't add a flats filename to your plan, or create that file.

--- Mike