Strike 2 on ASI290MC

lord beowulf

I bought the ASI290MC last month to use as an all-sky camera. To do so I need fully automated (unattended) image capture and processing, FTP uploads, etc. I started with iSpy Connect, which has all the features I want and is very configurable. It works fine with several other cameras I've tested, but the ZWO DirectShow driver causes it to crash hard (a driver level crash). It also causes problems with several other DirectShow based applications I tested. I posted on the Windows forum and was told by ZWO that they confirmed the problem and would look into it, but suggested I try one of the other (native) driver solutions.

After several weeks with no further response I was able to find another application that can do much of what I want using the ASCOM driver. It's the AllSkEye software originally written for the Starlight Express Oculus all sky camera, but now expanded to support ASCOM cameras. The software works well, but after a random number of frames, the ASCOM driver hangs and the only way to recover is to unplug the camera to reboot it. Strike Two!

So, any chance these drivers are going to be fixed anytime soon to support this camera, or should I just cut my losses, return it, and get a camera that works?

Thanks,

Beo

Sam@ZWO

how long have you run the app with the camera?

how long is the cable?

too long cable may have problem

lord beowulf

I'm running with the cable that comes with the camera. If that's too long then that's a pretty major problem.

The DirectShow driver will occasionally run for a minute or so, but usually crashes immediately. Once it starts crashing it does it pretty regularly as soon as I try to start imaging.

The ASCOM driver has a different problem and just hangs during an exposure. I can usually run for a minute or two before it hangs.

Thanks,

Beo

lord beowulf

I have a pretty repeatable result using Sequence Generator Pro and the ASCOM driver. If I run the frame and focus tool with 1 second exposures it seems to run indefinitely, but if I switch to a 0.5 second exposure, it hangs within a few frames.

Beo

lord beowulf

So if I downgrade to USB 2.0 then both the ASCOM and DirectShow programs work, although the latter appears to be having random deBayering problems where the images have random red, green, or blue casts to them.

iSpy Capture.JPG

The debayering of the ASCOM files requires quite a bit of adjustment in the capture program, but I didn't think the DirectShow should. Not sure if there's a setting I'm missing.

At any rate, the important point here is that I paid extra for a USB 3.0 camera and associated hardware, and I'm not getting any benefit from the added expense. It would appear that you need to work on the retry handling, etc. for the USB 3.0 interface so that it doesn't hang up or crash like this. I don't have this problem with my QHY USB 3.0 camera.

Thanks,

Beo

Sam@ZWO

can you try adjust "USB Limit" lower when connect USB3.0?

please send email to us and we can do a remote check through teamviewer

lord beowulf

Thanks Sam,

I've run at every possible setting, and USB 3.0 hangs in ASCOM and crashes a number of applications in DirectShow (most importantly iSpy which has the necessary motion detect and FTP for an all-sky camera). Even on USB 2.0 the camera still produces bad frames occasionally in ASCOM (missing a line so it deBayers wrong) and iSpy crashes. At this point I'm ready to give up on this camera and go with something else. The question now is whether or not any other ZWO camera (e.g. the ASI185MC) is any better or if I should look elsewhere.

Thanks,

Beo

chad

Hi Beo，

We apologize for not following up the problem in time.

Sam and Yang are very busy recently. So I'll follow up and see if I can solve your problem.

I will get back to this issue first. If I have any discoveries or questions, we will communicate in here. OK?

Thanks

chad

Hi beo，

Please try the attachment.

The problem may be that the device has been repeatedly created.

Thanks

chad

lord beowulf

Hi Chad,

Thanks for your help. Sorry for not mentioning this yesterday, but since I hadn't heard back I'd given up on the 290MC. However, after discussing it with OPT, I decided to give ZWO another try and bought an ASI178MC instead. The larger chip with the 3 form factor is a much better choice for the all-sky application anyway. I still had the same problems running at USB 3.0 speeds, although since I'd already resigned myself to USB 2.0 I didn't do as much testing at that speed since I just wanted to get the camera up and running. I still can't use it with iSpy, so I'm not sure where the problem lies there. As far as the ASCOM driver, so far it seems more stable than the 290MC was, but still gives the occasional missing pixels that result in a magenta image instead of a correctly deBayered image (see attached). I'd suspect the problems are similar in the 178 driver.

I wasn't sure which drivers these were, but after a HD search I see they're the DirectShow drivers. If you could see about the same change to the 178MC driver, I'd love to try it.

Also, on the ASCOM side, if there's any way to get the auto-exposure and automatic gain control from the DirectShow as an option in the ASCOM driver, that would be extremely useful for this application. The AllSkEye application does auto exposure, but doesn't control gain, and offset is apparently not exposed through ASCOM. To cover the day/night variation, the camera needs to go from ~300 gain and 60 second exposures down to zero gain and a few microseconds of exposure. There's no way to cover the range adequately with a fixed gain.

Again, thanks for getting back with me and I look forward to your response. I think the 178MC will be great for this application if I can just get past these few hurdles.

Thanks,

Beo

chad

Hi Beo,

Pardon， I don't know what you're going to do now.

Let me sort out the ideas.

1，For ispy， Neither 290MC nor 178MC can be used. And ispy use the DirectShow driver.

I will offer you a 178MC DriectShow driver in the attachment, and I think it should works well. You can try it.

2，For AllSkeye, use ASCOM dirver, it could not control the auto exp and so on.

If you have to use auto exposure, then forget the ASCOM driver. Because auto control is not in the ASCOM driver protocol.

3，USB2.0 is more stable than USB3.0

I think you made a mistake. Their differences are only in speed and power. If your camera doesn't have cooling function, power is enough. And speed only affects frame rate。Both of them shoule be stable.

4，missing pixel and the image is not correct.

I am not sure why. So I need you to tell me the sequence of your operations in more detail. And don't worry about it, I guess it should be a setting mistake.

So, Let's solve it one by one 。

The attachment is the 178 DirectShow driver. you can try it in Ispy. It should support the auto control. Maybe it still miss pixel and the image is not correct, but you can try other functions. Please try it and tell me your result. Then we will talking about the missing pixel. OK?

Thanks

chad

lord beowulf

Hi Chad,

Thanks for the driver. That does appear to resolve the issue with iSpy crashing. I wasn't sure if that was the x86 or 64 bit version of the dll, but dropped it in the x86 folder since I was using iSpy x86 and it worked. Thanks.

I tried uploading a sample FITS file from the 290MC showing the magenta color problem, but the board won't take it. Thus I've put them on my website at:

http://weather.orionranchobservatory.com/allskyimages/OROSky-2017-10-05T01-09-05-344-Good.zip

http://weather.orionranchobservatory.com/allskyimages/OROSky-2017-10-05T01-09-07-521-bad.zip

Thanks,

Beo

chad

Hi Beo，

I am sorry。 I forget to tell you it is for X86.

Now I have a new DX driver for X64 in attachment, Please try it.

Yeah, your pictures are different. However, I still don't get any useful information.

So， Please tell me how to repeat it?

BTW， I suggest you take it with the right driver.

Thanks

chad

lord beowulf

Hi Chad,

The bad frame problem is pretty easy for me to repeat. Just run the ASCOM driver long enough and you'll see one. Of course like any intermittent problem, it's not going to be easy to debug. I only had two bad frames in 24 hours on the ASI178MC. The ASI290MC seemed to have them much more often, but I'd have a hard time correlating that with anything other than the camera difference. Note that my original posts on the 290MC showed the problem for the DirectShow driver as well.

I'll see if I can test the x64 version this weekend.

Thanks,

Beo

chad

Hi Beo,

We used to have this problem in the debugging phase. According to your description，the probability is too low。So， it will take a long time to debug it.

Please tell me the application and settings that you used. I'll try to repeat it.

Thanks

chad

lord beowulf

Hi Chad:

On ASCOM I'm running AllSkEye. You can follow the thread on the Yahoo group I'd attached previously. For DirectShow I'm using iSpy.

Thanks,

Beo

chad

Hi Beo，

Can you send me an email？ I will make a remote control to help you update the 178MC and 290MC firmware, the new firmware should solved the bad debayer image（Pink or purple image）。

My email address: chad.cao(at)zwoptical.com

Thank

chad

lord beowulf

Hi Chad,

Thanks, I'll contact you through e-mail for the firmware upgrade. I've been pretty busy the past few weeks so haven't had a chance to get back here. I have one other problem for you that hopefully you can help resolve. It would appear that there's a memory leak in the ASCOM driver that after running for a long time (a day or so on AllSkEye) causes an out of memory error during the acquisition. Sometimes AllSkEye catches the exception as an error and stops acquisition while at other times it just crashes it. I've attempted to replicate the problem using the ASCOM driver in SharpCap, but that just hangs SharpCap after a few minutes of operation (just displaying, not actually saving anything). Anything you could do to help address this situation would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Beo