At least two times over the last couple of weeks I have had a session start with CCDAP and it didn't start the guider. After stopping the session I noticed in the log that it said warning session unguided. It's weird because I hadn't shut CCDAP down from the night before. Nothing had changed I just started the run using the settings from the night before. Same thing happened a few months ago and all i have done is shut down CCDAP and restarted it, everything worked fine afterwards. Anyone seen this before? I have the log attached.

Scott

ccdap20080305_205134.log (7 KB, 59 downloads)

So... I'm guessing after almost a week without a reply no one else has seen this behavior?

John? No thoughts from you?

Scott

Hello Scott,

See http://ccdware.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/1141040351/m/5171049372

I haven't seen this behavior before. Let me see if I understand what you are saying. You had a session run properly one night. You left all applications, CCDAP, CCCDSoft, TheSky, FocusMax, etc. up and running. Then the next night, you tried a run and it was unguided with no changes to the target list or system profile and that night it was unguided. Or did you selectively close some apps. and not others?

Hi John,
I disconnected all of the programs from CCDAP and closed everything but CCDAP. The computer is running in a remote observatory, so it is only used for imaging. The next night I opened The Sky and CCDSoft, then connected CCDAP to the other programs, it opened FocusMax and RoboFocus. That's when i tried to run it and got the Warning: Session Unguided.

Since I generally start the session my self and don't setup for it to start without me monitoring the beginning, I just stopped it and shut down CCDAP and restarted.

Now I always shut down CCDAP to avoid the problem. There are times when I let the session start without me monitoring and that's when I would be concerned about a repeat of the unguided session.

Scott

Scott,

When you shut down server application from "underneath" the client, CCDAutoPilot in this case, the resultant initialization of the server on restart is suspect. This may be what you are seeing. In personally running hundreds of imaging runs, I have never see the problem you have observed.

You can see this same problem with just FocusMax and CCDSoft. Close CCDSoft from under FocusMax and then restart CCDSoft without restarting FocusMax. Focusing will fail in FocusMax. This is another illustration of the same issue.

So, either leave all programs running, or close them all (recommended). See the Hint in the Troubleshooting topic of the help system for startup recommendations.

Thanks John. I will always shut CCDAP down in the future.

Hopefully I will never see this issue again.

Scott

Oh, FWIW, I did this routinely for multiple imaging runs over weeks and never saw this problem. Just lazy on my part in regards to saving my target list in CCDAP.

Scott

I have seen this happen quite a bit and have just worked around it. I try to remember to check the "session setup" information in the log before actually doing the final "run session." If I see it shows that the session will be unguided, I simply close and restart CCDAP and it will run it as it is supposed to, as a guided session. I mentioned this to John several months ago when I noticed this specifically in connection with having just initialized a new guider configuration and then going straight on to running a session. John told me at the time this was a bug he was having trouble finding and to simply shut CCDAP down and restart it after an itialization. That worked fixed the problem in that circumstance, but numerous times since then I have seen it under many other circumstances. Sometimes even after something seemlingly simple as aborting a run, and just restarting it, the 2nd run went to unguided. This never happens on a "fresh" run of a scheduled session as long as I always make sure I restart CCDAP before a run. But it can be irritating when it happens at odd times...

Any ideas on what could be causing this?

Thanks,
David Plesko

This message has been edited. Last edited by: David Plesko,

Hi David,
At least I know I'm not crazy now!
I'll be interested to see what John says.

Scott

If either or you can provide exact steps and a log to duplicate this problem, you would help immensely in solving the issue.

Did you see the log I attached at the beginning of this thread?

I'll try and recount exactly what I did, shortly.

Scott

Hopefully Scott can provide logs to assist as I am not in a place to be able to search through the logs to find an example right now. Also I usually catch it before I actually begin executing a session by hitting the review setup button and seeing that it is going to be unguided.

Unless I am missing something John, I do not think a log would show anything here. My setup is consistent and the only thing that happens is it goes from guided operation to unguided.

My simplest example was this...

I started running a session and rememberd after a few moments that I did not have my dawn flats setup as I wanted. I hit abort. Changed the flat information and hit run session again. Checked the review setup information and saw that it went to unguided operation. I then did the only thing I new that works. I closed CCDAP, restarted, hit run session again, and it was back to guided operation.

Thanks Scott and Dave. I've aborted many, many runs and not had the unguided issue. A log really isn't that much help (other than for version reporting. It is some sequence of operator actions that causes the problem and I need that exact sequence. How were the server applications loaded and connected to the equipment, in what order, how was CCDAP started and what steps were used to produce the issue.

Hi guys,
I wanted to add another data point here. I ran into this exact same problem two nights ago. I ran an LRGB sequence on a target. While the sequence was running I noticed that one of my color subs needed to be reshot. Up to this point guiding had been working well as usual. Before the run completed I aborted and reconfigured to take the additional color sub. Upon resuming the run CCDAP would only do so unguided. I had changed none of the equipment or software settings in the underlying programs.

I am also seeing some new, aberrant behavior involving my TAKometer rotator and file naming, but I will leave that to a different thread.

Regards,
Mike O'Connor

Hi Mike,

This might be a good clue. Please post the log from the aborted run. This will show where you aborted, among other things. Also, the target list and system profile would be helpful as well. Please zip all three in a single post.

Thanks.