App-Firmware BackWards Incompatibility Found

curtismacc

App - Firmware Backwards Compatibility Bug
It was said by the ZWO tech in the v2.6 release thread that there is backwards compatibility between App Version 2.6 and firmware version V4.7. I think I accidentally stumbled upon a bug showing broken compatibility in at least one particular situation. My App automatically updated to v2.6 but I did not update the latest firmware to v5.34. Today I was trying to help a friend get started using his Seestar who was having trouble finding and imaging the sun. Since I was talking with him long distance I set up my Seestar in Alt/Az mode to match his and helped him get the Seestar to find the sun - just needed to recalibrate the compass. But then he noticed when he tried to take a photo of the sun by taping the circular icon at the bottom of the screen with the sun in Solar System mode a small black box with a rotating segmented image in the center appeared and the App froze up. I tried the same and the same thing happened to me. Trying to take a single image of the sun in Solar System mode resulted in the App hanging up indefinitely. I found that if I closed the App on my phone, but did not shut down the Seestar, and then re-opened the App and connected to the Seestar the App was no longer hung up. But if I tried to take a photo the App hung up again. I also noted that I could take a video or a time lapse no problem. The same things happened if I tried these in Scenary mode. Every time he or I tried to take a photo the App hung up. I even shut down the Seestar several times to see if this cleared the problem but no joy (it did not). Finally, I decided I might as well update the firmware while I was at it and then see if that helped. After updating the firmware the problem disappeared.

So, if you have the latest App version but an older firmware version than v5.34 you will likely find that you cannot take a photo of the sun either in Solar System or Scenery Mode unless you update the firmware.

I expect the ZWO team can check and replicate this problem and then fix it so other folks don't have to go through the confusion I and my friend did. As a mater of record I have not yet found out what version of the App and firmware his system is using, but a good guess is that it is the latest App but an older firmware.

Support@Seestar

curtismacc We have explained this situation before. The compatibility you mentioned has not been implemented yet, so there may be inconsistencies between the software and firmware versions.

We are considering adding this compatibility, but currently, if the firmware is not updated to match the latest version, such issues may occur.

For example, the spinning issue you encountered while capturing solar images happens because we changed the storage location for solar photos in the new version.

curtismacc

Support@Seestar Thank you for your response. Correct me if I am wrong but I thought you had previously replied to someone's question about App and firmware versions saying that there is backwards compatibility. Perhaps you meant "mostly backward compatible". Given that, I thought I would share one such situation where backwards compatibility was broken so that others would know what was causing this problem if they ran into it as well.

Makes sense that the spinning and lockup is due to the Seestar not being able to find the new directory. As I said, the solution is to update the firmware when the App is updated. Since my App updated automatically and I wasn't watching I did not think of this as the cause of the problem initially.

Regards,
Curtis