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  1. #1

    Default MaxIm hang causing ACP to hang

    Recently MaxIm hangs occasionally while trying to download an image from my camera (STL-11000M). This causes ACP to hang as well and does not respond to any commands such as the abort button or weather unsafe event. Therefore, the observatory was not shutdown and remains active into the next day. This is extremely dangerous and causes all sorts of problems. For example, my mount keeps tracking all the time and my scope is crash onto the pier. Fortunately the dome was closed by the cloudwatcher.

    Is there anyway to prevent MaxIm problem from hanging ACP? Is it possible to implement some sort of timeout so that such things will not happen?

    Many thanks in advance for any ideas!

    Angus Lau

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
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    Mesa, AZ
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    Default

    It is not practical to add "defensive" code for lockups in programs that have been called by an ACP script. The Windows OS puts ACP into a "quiet" state when it is waiting for a script call to another program. ACP will not even accept mouse clicks. Calls to other programs are supposed to return very quickly by design.

    You are going to need to fix the real problem (probably unreliable USB). It can be done. There are many STL-11000M cameras out there that run without locking up the system.
    -- Bob

  3. #3

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    Hi Bob, thanks for the comments and I can understand your point. However, in practise these things do happen and will happen once in a while. The problem is that when it happens, it can become a disaster. Of course, I'll do everything to fix the root cause of the problem. But sometimes it is difficult to be certain. Particularly when I am several thousand kiliometers away. Simple things like trying another USB cable is not trivial. Help on site is very limited and takes a long time.

    Tonight I was working with the support on site trying to recover the mount. Operation succeeded. But when I tried to check and re-seat the camera USB cable (as a means trying to resolve that hanging problem), the USB hub failed. So it may be the USB hub is faulty. Then we replaced the USB hub. After a very short while, the PC crashed. Now the PC is dead and won't boot up - blank screen. Looks like I'll be out of action for a while before the PC is replaced.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
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    Oh no, are you sure the PC is dead? Or maybe it is the USB that is preventing successful boot?
    -- Bob

  5. #5

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    Thanks for the suggest, Bob. That was what i thought when it happended. But unplugged all USB devices still no go. And it was completely blank screen according to the person on-site.

    Last year things were very smooth for me. However, it was nightmare one after next for the past few months. Oh well, I guess this is part of the game.

 

 

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