PHD not responding

[piprees]

Just a small problem with PHD. I've got it guiding for a few minutes and then the screen flashes a different colour a couple of times but still kept guiding. It happens again a few minutes later. This goes on every few minutes for about 20 minutes and then it loses it all together with a message saying PHD not responding. The guiding stops and also the tracking stops!!! It may be a connection problem but I had 3 hours continuous guiding the other night with no problem at all. It's a bit like when the computer says google not responding or ebay not responding. I can live with it but just wondered if anyone else has experienced the same. 

It's the old PHD, 1-14-2, with a QHY5 11 and a NEQ6. I've tried loading PHD2 but my laptop's not having it at all.

Kind regards,

Phil

[Pompey Monkey]

This does sound very much like a connection problem to me. Make sure that all of your USB connections are secure:

I slightly squash mine a little to make sure that they don't move so much, but that might not be a good strategy in the long run! lol.

[piprees]

Thanks PM, I'll give them a squeeze. They do seem to fit a little tighter into my wife's new laptop but that's a definite no no!!!!

[geordie85]

It may be a power surge problem. Try using different outlets for your laptop and goto.

Also try using slightly longer exposures on PHD. It sounds like it's loosing the guide star, that's why the screen flashes

[piprees]

Thanks Geordie, yes, that's what happened some time ago when a cloud got in the way. I'll try a different port as well.

P.

[beamer3.6m]

Your not loosing the star are you. Cloud etc.

[geordie85]

No problem. It usually happens to me too when using 0.5 exposures even though I can still see the star on the screen. Just increase the time to 1.0 or 1.5 and see if that helps

[RobRob]

Are you trying to guide on a dark pixel???

[carastro]

Do you get a beeping noise at the same time, or have you got the sound turned off?

Carole 

[piprees]

Hi Carol, definitely no beep just flashes a different colour where the brain, stop, telescope icons are. Can't tell what colour as I'm badly colour blind. There were no clouds about, a really good sky and the guide star was a proper star so I'm suspecting the connections. I use an active extension cable and things seem ok most of the time. I'll check them out with monitoring meter. 

Regards,

P.

[Xplode]

Sounds like connection problems, could it be the cable? What is the cable length?

[piprees]

5 metres. I thought it would be too long but was advised to use an active extension lead which acts like a booster or amplifier so I'm happy with that.  

P.

[carastro]

No beeps then I don't think you are losing the guide star.  So does sound like a connection problem.  How annoying after such a long period if imaging.

Carole 

[glowingturnip]

yep, I'd agree connection problem - with the older PHD's, if there's a connection time-out issue with the camera then it crashes.  The newer PHD2's handle that a bit better and alert you to it instead.  So make sure everything's plugged in tightly

[Ouroboros]

Odd. I've just started to have a very similar problem with PHD and QHY-5II. Whereas it's worked more or less OK with occasional blips up to now. PHD starts OK, and connects with camera and mount OK. But when I start to loop, the image seems to update intermittently and PHD soon flags up the message Not Responding. It does look like a connection problem, but unfortunately I don't have another cable I can test.

I'd like to test the camera with another application. I've tried EZ-Planetary, which comes with the camera's software, but I'm not sure I'm using it properly and don't know what to expect. Any suggestions other than the obvious: try another cable?

[glowingturnip]

quite probably is the cable.  The PHD folks are very helpful though, maybe if you drop them a copy of your debug log for that session they could help.

the QHY is quite fussy with drivers - iirc the one that works for me in PHD is called 'QHY5liic' but there are others called things like 'QHY5liic ASCOM' and just 'QHY5l' or something like that, and those didn't work for me.

EZPlanetary is very straightforward to use, should be easy enough to figure out, try it in the daytime and check you're getting a decent framerate.

But as I say, try the phd forum, and try another cable...

[Ouroboros]

Glowing Turnip - yes, re. EZPlanetary it looks from instructions on the web that simply plugging in and choosing the camera one should immediately start seeing an image from the camera. The fact that I don't see anything suggests that the cable, the camera or a driver is caput. I had expected to see a button labelled Capture or something to start the imaging but there doesn't appear to be one. There's a Snap and Video button but neither seem to do anything. The odd thing is that my EZPlanetay seems to know it's got a QHY-5II connected to it.

[glowingturnip]

i don't have access to it at the moment, but I think the way to connect is via camera menu / QHY5L-II and select a resolution, it should then start showing liveview on the screen, like this...

[Ouroboros]

OK. That confirms what I thought. I don't see anything. mmmmm.

[wuthton]

I had an intermittent PHD, non responsive camera problem. In the brain the brain menu there is an option for time to wait for a non responsive camera, I upped this from 5 seconds to 15, problem was solved.

[Ouroboros]

I don't seem to have that feature, Wuthton. Unless you mean LE Delay. That's greyed out in my version.

I've now got the camera working satisfactorily with EZPlanetary. The problem was the settings - delay and gamma etc. This suggests the camera and USB cable/connector are OK.

I've updated PHD from V1.14.0 to v1.14.2 (the latest) and still have the same problem. Maybe it's the driver.

[wuthton]

I don't seem to have that feature, Wuthton. Unless you mean LE Delay. That's greyed out in my version.

I've now got the camera working satisfactorily with EZPlanetary. The problem was the settings - delay and gamma etc. This suggests the camera and USB cable/connector are OK.

I've updated PHD from V1.14.0 to v1.14.2 (the latest) and still have the same problem. Maybe it's the driver.

I was referring to PHD2, it's sounds very similar to the problem I had.

[Barry-Wilson]

Of course, you don't need to use the ST4 cable at all if you use ascom pulse guiding - 1 less cable and pulse guiding is faster responding to commands.

You still use PHD or PHD2 and commands are sent via your eqdir cable direct to the mount.  You need to enable pulse guiding within Eqascom and set the option within PHD or PHD2.  Chris Shillito has a good You Tube tutorial for it.  I stopped using ST4 guiding nearly two years ago and I wouldn't go back to it.

It won't cure usb, usb hub or power problems though

HTH

Barry

[Ouroboros]

I have now reinstalled the latest drivers from the QHY website and I still have the same problem with PHD being unstable and regularly becoming non-responsive.

By the way, the new driver are QHY5II_IO.sys and QHY5II_FW.sys. My computer picks the FW one. Why are there two I wonder?

[Ouroboros]

This seems to be a workaround (kind of) .... The bit about selecting Ascom camera ....

Do you have the Ascom platform installed on your laptop? I use the QHY5 & PHD. Camera USB plugged into the laptop, ST4 cable from QHY5 to mount. In the 'mount' settings at the top of PHD I select 'on camera'. In the camera selector (botton left icon in PHD) I select Ascom v5 camera, and then from the box that comes up, select QHY5. Never had a problem. I'm using Win 7 32 bit on my netbook and 64 bit on my laptop.

Sorry if I'm teaching you to 'suck eggs' .

PHD seems become unresponsive less frequently. The best thing seems to be to leave the computer alone. So it's still a bit flaky, but much less so. I'll give guiding a go tonight if skies remain clear.