Problem with ATIK 414EX ASCOM in PHD2 and MaximDL

[prejto]

My Atik 414EX has worked very well using the native driver in TSX and PHD2. In PHD2 it is not possible to bin the camera so I must use ASCOM. I immediately have issues. The camera will guide but stopping guiding causes PHD2 to completely lock up. It becomes totally unresponsive and the only way to free the program is to physically power down the camera.

I wanted to determine if the problem was with PHD2 or the ASCOM driver so I tried to run the camera in Maxim vis ASCOM. Single images work fine as does guiding. Stopping guiding in Maxim is not a problem. However, in focus mode, where continuous images are commanded, Maxim completey locks up even though updated images continue to be displayed. No controls operate in Maxim once focus mode is started. Unpowering the camera releases Maxim.;

The two problem seem related so I would guess that the problem is with the Atik ASCOM driver.

I hope this problem can be addressed.

Thanks,

Peter

[Jo]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for letting us know about this, and sorry for the inconvenience it's causing. I'll pass it on to our software engineer Chris to take a look at, and hopefully we'll be able to get a fix out soon.

Best,
Jo

[ChrisGolden]

Hi Peter,

Sorry to hear you're having problems. Which version of the software are you using? I would recommend downloading the latest from our website to see if the problem still occurs:

http://www.atik-cameras.com/downloads/

If so, let me know and I'll investigate further.

Chris.

[prejto]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your reply!

I've attempted to install the latest drivers and I receive the following error message during MS Visual C++2008:

"Out of disk space- volume 'g:' required space 1456 kb. available space 0 kb"

This is quite confusing as I have no volume "g"  Please advise!

Thanks,
Peter

[ChrisGolden]

Hi Peter,

That's strange. It no longer installs the MS Visual C++ 2008 'redist'. Are you installing the core software? What operating system are you using?

Chris

[prejto]

Chris,

I downloaded from here: http://www.atik-cameras.com/downloads/ and I'm attaching a screenshot of the items I selected to install. I'll test the drivers again tonight as I cancelled the C+++ and other drivers seemed to install OK. I'm running Win7 Pro 64 bit.

Thanks,
Peter

[prejto]

Unfortunately even with the updated drivers I'm now having a similar issue with the native ATIK driver. I was guiding for over an hour without problem in PHD2. I stopped guiding and when I tried to disconnect the camera everything froze. I had to force shut PHD2 as it wouldn't respond even after I powered off the camera and removed the USB cable. I was then unable to use the camera even though it showed up as reinstalled in the device manager. I had to reboot the computer to get going again.

I don't know if this is a PHD2 problem or an ATIK problem. For all I know it may have something to do with how I'm connecting to the camera though I've used the camera for as long as I've owned it connected the way it is without issue (with Maxim). Recently I've tried to use PHD2 only because it will control an SX-AO. Then the problem started. In any case I'm connected to a Digiport powered hub on the mount (MEII) which connects to an Icron Ranger (completely bypassing the inbuilt Bisque Mount hub). This combination has been the most reliable combination I've tried. It currently runs 2 imaging cameras, 2 guiders, 2 focusers and the SX-AO simultaneously. None of the other gear is complaining. I will try connecting in other creative ways and see what happens.

Peter

[Chris]

It would help a lot if people were to report the actual version number of the various software components they have installed.  Saying "the latest" or "the updated" drivers tells us nothing, especially if things are changing rapidly.

Chris

[prejto]

Chris,

Windows 7 pro 64 bit

PHD2  2.6.1 dev11
ASCOM 6.1
Maxim: 5.18

As for the ATIK camera driver I'm not sure how to find this. It isn't listed in the device manager as best I can tell. In any case the driver is the latest directly from your website.

Did I miss something? THANKS!!

Peter

[Chris]

The important thing is the Atik ASCOM driver version, after all that's what you are saying has problems.  The version is shown in the driver setup window.

BTW the ASCOM platform 6.1 is out of date.  I don't think that's relevant but it may be worth updating it once this is sorted.

Chris (not Atik's Chris).

[prejto]

Yes, I agree my original post concerned the ASCOM driver. However, now I've had a similar kind of issue using the regular ATIK driver in PHD2 where just trying to disconnect the camera from the software caused a major lockup of PHD2 and the camera would not run again unless I rebooted.

In any case here is the ASCOM driver info:

21:33:04.520 FileDetails               C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\ASCOM\Camera\Atik\ASCOM.Atik.Camera.dll
21:33:04.521 FileDetails                  Assembly Version:   ASCOM.Atik.Camera, Version=7.0.1.38454, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null
21:33:04.521 FileDetails                  Assembly Framework: v4.0.30319
21:33:04.522 FileDetails                  File Version:       7.0.1.38454
21:33:04.522 FileDetails                  Product Version:    7.0.1.38454
21:33:04.522 FileDetails                  Description:        Atik Camera Driver
21:33:04.522 FileDetails                  Company Name:       Atik Cameras
21:33:04.522 FileDetails                  Last Write Time:    5/06/2016 10:21:50 PM
21:33:04.522 FileDetails                  Creation Time:      5/02/2015 10:23:31 AM
21:33:04.522 FileDetails                  File Length:        92,160
21:33:04.522 FileDetails                  Attributes:         Archive
21:33:04.522 FileDetails                  .NET Assembly:      True
21:33:04.522 FileDetails                  Bitness:            Bits32
21:33:04.522 FileDetails                  Subsystem:          WINDOWS_CUI
21:33:04.522                           
21:33:04.523 FileDetails               C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\ASCOM\Camera\Atik\ASCOM.Atik.Server.exe
21:33:04.524 FileDetails                  Assembly Version:   ASCOM.Atik.Server, Version=7.0.1.38454, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null
21:33:04.524 FileDetails                  Assembly Framework: v4.0.30319
21:33:04.524 FileDetails                  File Version:       7.0.1.38454
21:33:04.524 FileDetails                  Product Version:    7.0.1.38454
21:33:04.524 FileDetails                  Description:        ASCOM Atik server
21:33:04.524 FileDetails                  Company Name:       ASCOM Initiative
21:33:04.524 FileDetails                  Last Write Time:    5/06/2016 10:21:48 PM
21:33:04.524 FileDetails                  Creation Time:      5/02/2015 10:23:31 AM
21:33:04.524 FileDetails                  File Length:        26,624
21:33:04.524 FileDetails                  Attributes:         Archive
21:33:04.525 FileDetails                  .NET Assembly:      True
21:33:04.525 FileDetails                  Bitness:            Bits32
21:33:04.525 FileDetails                  Subsystem:          WINDOWS_GUI
21:33:04.525                           
21:33:04.525 FileDetails               C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\ASCOM\Camera\Atik\ASCOM.Atik2.Camera.dll
21:33:04.526 FileDetails                  Assembly Version:   ASCOM.Atik2.Camera, Version=7.0.1.38454, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null
21:33:04.526 FileDetails                  Assembly Framework: v4.0.30319
21:33:04.527 FileDetails                  File Version:       7.0.1.38454
21:33:04.527 FileDetails                  Product Version:    7.0.1.38454
21:33:04.527 FileDetails                  Description:        Atik Camera Driver 2
21:33:04.527 FileDetails                  Company Name:       Atik Cameras
21:33:04.527 FileDetails                  Last Write Time:    5/06/2016 10:21:48 PM
21:33:04.527 FileDetails                  Creation Time:      5/02/2015 10:23:31 AM
21:33:04.527 FileDetails                  File Length:        92,160
21:33:04.527 FileDetails                  Attributes:         Archive
21:33:04.527 FileDetails                  .NET Assembly:      True
21:33:04.527 FileDetails                  Bitness:            Bits32
21:33:04.527 FileDetails                  Subsystem:          WINDOWS_CUI

[Chris]

That's the info needed.  Version 7.0.1 is the version that Chris Golden released a week or two ago and it seems to have a problem with the temperature reporting.  It seems to report a temperature that's 1/10th of the Celsius value that it should be, so  -15 deg will be reported as -1.5.  There may be other issues as well.

I wrote the original ASCOM driver but Atik have taken it in house so will need to fix this.

Chris R

[ChrisGolden]

Hi Peter,

Sorry for the slow response on this. I'll look into this problem later today and report back. My main problem at the moment is that I don't have PHD installed and I've never used it before, so it might be a bit slow going. I'll try and recreate the issues in SGP and MaxIm and see if these suffer from a similar issue.

Can I just confirm what the issue is:

The software freezes when you disconnect the camera.
This happened after an hour of guiding.
Once this happened, the PC needed to be restarted.

Chris

[prejto]

Chris,

Thanks for your reply. To sum up there are two random issues. They don't happen every time.

1. Using the ASCOM driver in PHD2 just stopping guiding may freeze PHD2 and again using ASCOM in Maxim in focus mode, focus mode cannot be stopped.

2. Not using ASCOM. PHD2 may freeze disconnecting the camera after it has been used for a while. I had this issue 1 time and reported it. Tonight I used PHD2 for a short amount of time and had no issue disconnecting.

Problem #2 might have been caused by something else and I don't feel very certain about it.

Problem #1 has happened more than a few times in PHD2 and always with Maxim. This post reports a similar problem with Maxim though with a different ATIK camera: http://forums.atik-cameras.com/index.php?topic=2613.0

Thanks for looking into this!

Peter

EDIT: I just found this thread over at Maxim. It seems the disconnect issue /Maxim has been around for a long time:

http://www.diffractionlimited.com/forum/index.php?threads/problems-with-atik-460ex.86/

[ChrisGolden]

Hi Peter,

I've been looking into this issue with MaxIm, but I'm unable to recreate it here. I'm sure I must be missing something. If I describe what I've done, perhaps you can point me in the right direction:

1) Opened MaxIm(5) and connected to the camera via ASCOM
2) Gone to the exposure tab, changed the Exposure Preset to '*Focus'
3) Selected 'Continuous' on the right hand side.
4) Clicked Start

I've tried various different exposure times and binnings, but I can always pressed the 'Stop' button.

Am I missing a step here?

Chris.