Problem getting FocusMax to change filters

[Robert Brewington]

This is another intermittent problem I have been experiencing. Don't know where to go to debug it further

ACP is running a plan with 2 filters (Red and Green). It focuses, runs the first 5 Red exposures. Now it wants to switch to the Green filter, so it sends a command to move the focuser based on the FilterInfo.txt file. Somehow, this interaction with FocusMax fails with the error

**Imaging error: Object variable or With block variable not set

This looks to me like ACP is reporting the error from FM failing?

Previous focus runs were fine, and the focuser was shifted other times just fine.

I have attached the run log. I looked in the FocusMax logs and these requests are not reported there; only the focusing runs show up.

Ignore the manual abort of the script after the scope is parked. After the FM error, ACP tries to shut down the scope and dome; the scope is correctly parked and disconnected, then ACP hangs (correctly) while it tries to park and close the dome. The dome process has issues with the hardware and Foster driver, so ACP "hangs normally". ACP ends up waiting for the dome closure, so I manually abort the script. That last part is fine, I am working on the dome issues. The FocusMax problem is what I am concerned with.

When it happens, FocusMax and ACP continue running - it does not crash the programs.

Version info:
Win 7/64 bit
ACP 7
Maxim 6 beta3
Ascom 6
SkyX, Paramount MX, updated a couple of months ago.

[Robert Brewington]

Two more points:

FocusMax is version 3.8.0.0

When the problem occurs, FocusMax will continue having the problem. I have to restart FocusMax to get things working again.

[Bob Denny]

Start FocusMax up (manually or via startup script) at the beginning of the night. Don't let ACP start/stop it on demand. This is a long standing and known bug in FocusMax, where it "sometimes" will fail to initialize at startup.

[Robert Brewington]

That is what I do; I have seen mention of difficulty finding FocusMax. At the moment, I start up manually because I am having issues with the dome.

My manual process:

Start AstroMC (Dome) and Open Dome shutter manually.
Start Maxim & connect cameras. Verify exposure working. No telescope or dome connections in Maxim.
Start SkyX.
Start FocusMax, which connects itself to Maxim and focuser. No telescope connection in FocusMax.
Start ACP, connect to Telescope and Camera.

ACP slew to some Eastern star, verify star with manual 1 sec Maxim exposure. Just checking that Dome is actually open, camera is working, mount is slewing OK.
ACP FindBrightStar. Focus manually using FocusMax (just to ensure things start out in a reasonable position. Sometimes if focuser was left in an odd position the first focus run might have difficulties).

Now ready to run a plan. Most of the night ACP is working fine with FocusMax.

It "seems like" the problem occurs when I go from one colored (not Clear) filter to another colored one (i.e., Red to Green). Most of the time movements are from Clear to colored and back, with no problem. The 4 times I have seen it occur it has always been between colored filters.

[Bob Denny]

This sounds like a filter wheel problem if it is "random" and maybe later in the night when it is colder??? Is the error "can't create object"? Maybe post a screen shot of the error and it's environment.

[Robert Brewington]

I think there is a problem with the newer FocusMax version (3.8.0.0). I uninstalled it and re-installed 3.4.40. Did not have the problem last night, will see again tonight.

The error was an empty object in FocusMax,
**Imaging error: Object variable or With block variable not set

I wonder if something has changed in their interface, so that ACP may have problems jogging the filters in the future as more people go to version 3.8.0.0?

Anyway, if 3.4 continues to work OK, I am happy.

[Peter Petrone]

Hi Robert:

I am experiencing essentially the same problem. With my equipment, it seems equally prone to occur between color filter changes as it is when transitioning from "clear" to a colored filter. Based on your observation, I downloaded Focusmax ver 3.4.40 and will give it a spin when the clouds roll out. I made a curious observation after removing the most recent version of Focusmax and then installing ver 3.4.40. It seems that the "about tab" in Focusmax still shows that I am running ver 3.8 (though it was removed). This is probably just a registry remnant and not indicative of what is actually running on my computer. On the other hand, when encountering odd behavior .............. who knows?

Peter

[Bob Denny]

There were no API changes between 3.4 and 3.8. But ACP has nothing to do with FocusMax controlling and selecting filters. ACP can select a filter before starting FocusMax, to cause the focus to be done through a specific filter, but once FocusMax starts running, ACP is completely out of the picture.

[Robert Brewington]

Hmmm, mine did not say 3.8 after I uninstalled and then installed 3.4. Did you uninstall the 3.8 first?

Also, I had another problem when going backward: my saved profiles (in the .ini files) are in a different format in 3.8 than in 3.4. Fortunately I had some old profiles that had never been opened in 3.8, so they still had the old formatting. I edited the 3.8-modified files by hand to get them to work.

a) 3.8 uses a pipe character "|" to delimit fields in the profile. 3.4 uses a space.
b) 3.4 needs 3 or 4 fields added onto the end of each profile entry. The fields were all zeros in the older profiles, so I just copied and pasted the fields onto the end of each profile record.

Just check your profile after starting 3.4, to verify that the profile is correctly loaded.

[Robert Brewington]

True, ACP does not tell FM to change filters. However, ACP does tell FM to reposition the focuser based on the FilterOffsets information. It appears that FM has a scriptable command to essentially do a Jog operation to change the focuser position. This is where the problem occurs. Only on occasion, of course Like Peter, I experienced the error on various filter changes, both Lum to color and color to color.

I have no idea if FM made some subtle API change relative to the jog command, or just some bug has crept into FM which causes the error. I would guess the API has not changed since the error is intermittent. Certainly the problem has gone away on my system after reverting to 3.4, indicating some type of bug in FM 3.8.

I intend to put a message on the FM users group, but I haven't gotten to it yet. I will do that next.