Astroberry - Ekos capture problem: directory not foud

[AstroRookie]

Hello,

I'm currently setting up a raspberry pi with astroberry. I'm using a Canon Eos 500D for capturing. A couple of weeks ago I managed to capture some test images during the day, the only thing I remember that it was not straight forward. Now with the upcoming clear skies I'm  testing every thing once more so that I can do some capturing during the weekend. But I can't make it work any more, whatever I try, the capture abort with in the indi console the message: Error downloading image from camera: Directory not found.

I tried different directories even the astroberry users home directory, checked permissions, created files via the command line in the directories without any problem, but no, it just keeps complaining that it can't find the directory to download. I've found this topic indilib.org which says that it's something to do with the pixel size not being set (I really can't understand how this affects not finding a directory), so I've set the pixel size, but sill the same error.

Anybody any clue?

Thanks in advance,

AstroRookie

[alacant]

1 hour ago, AstroRookie said:

I've found this topic indilib.org

Hi

The fixes there there don't work?

If not, save to the camera's SD card until you get chance to look at the log.

Cheers

 

 

[AstroRookie]

7 minutes ago, alacant said:

Hi

The fixes there there don't work?

If not, save to the camera's SD card until you get chance to look at the log.

Cheers

 

 

Hello Alacant,

nope, I entered the pixel size but that did not help; the error I mentioned is from the log files. I just noticed on the indilib;org website that there is a canon driver; up to now I've been using the generic GPhoto driver. I'll give that canon driver a try tomorrow.

AstroRookie

Edited November 5, 2020 by AstroRookie

[alacant]

1 minute ago, AstroRookie said:

I entered the pixel size

?

The fixes don't mention anything about pixel size.

Go through the fixes they suggest.

Cheers

[AstroRookie]

5 minutes ago, alacant said:

?

The fixes don't mention anything about pixel size.

Go through the fixes they suggest.

Cheers

I'll check the communication mode as well; though I'd be surpirsed if that is the problem, as this was working a couple of weeks ago. As for the timed shooting, don't really know what that means, I'm just doing a Preview shot, and that fails with the aforementioned error.

Kind regards,

AstroRookie

[alacant]

12 hours ago, AstroRookie said:

timed shooting

It's an indi setting. You can choose to force BULB and have indi time the exposures or have the internal camera time them. 

A few other bits which may help you find it...

Are you saving as CR2 or fits?

Is the camera set to M?

Is the camera set to B?

Have you tried another cable?

Are you certain that the camera is not mounted by the computer?

HTH

Edited November 6, 2020 by alacant

[AstroRookie]

18 hours ago, alacant said:

It's an indi setting. You can choose to force BULB and have indi time the exposures or have the internal camera time them. 

A few other bits which may help you find it...

Are you saving as CR2 or fits?

Is the camera set to M?

Is the camera set to B?

Have you tried another cable?

Are you certain that the camera is not mounted by the computer?

HTH

Hello Alacant,

force bulb enabled did it, thank you very much. I have to admit as a beginner the settings in Ekos are a bit overwhelming.

Kind regards,

AstroRookie

[alacant]

49 minutes ago, AstroRookie said:

the settings in Ekos are a bit overwhelming.

If you have any issues in future and you're in a hurry, you can get an -almost- instant fix/solution by posting a one liner along with the log here. The log removes any guesswork.

Cheers and well done for sticking at it.

 

[AstroRookie]

2 hours ago, alacant said:

If you have any issues in future and you're in a hurry, you can get an -almost- instant fix/solution by posting a one liner along with the log here. The log removes any guesswork.

Cheers and well done for sticking at it.

 

Hello Alacant,

thanks for encouraging but I have still some very strange behavior with Ekos:

• I have setup for a "test" session this evening, and the software as well as my Canon 500D are behaving very strange
• Yesterday, the display of the camera was not lit, which I found pretty cool, no extra disturbing light, but today it's lit ??
• When taking my test 2s exposures to focus, the directory not found error occurred again, then having switched to FITS and back to native, when previewing it always needed 2 attempts, the first attempt failed and the second attempt popped up the preview ... very weired
• Started PHD2 (I know you suggested internal guiding, put I didn't want to push it as I already used PHD2 on my macbook before, next time I'll try the internal guiding)
• Finally I managed to start a 120x1min session, but after 6 captures it crashed (it, being the indi server I presume)
• When I restarted, the KStars preview, constantly popped up, so iI killed every thing and restarted the whole session; now it's at capture 22 and seems to behave normally

Can you point me to the indi server logs, then I'll post them on the forum you mentioned.

Thanks for your help, really appreciated!

Kind regards,

AstroRookie

[CedricTheBrave]

Have you updated to the latest version of the build?

these issues are similar to my early builds of Astroberry but it has been stable for a while now.

run from the terminal sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt dist-upgrade

hope that helps

[AstroRookie]

24 minutes ago, CedricTheBrave said:

Have you updated to the latest version of the build?

these issues are similar to my early builds of Astroberry but it has been stable for a while now.

run from the terminal sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt dist-upgrade

hope that helps

Hello Cedric,

thanks for the hint; I'll do that tomorrow; after 6 weeks of wind, clouds and rain, I'll finish this session first, it's at 64 captures of 120 now and seems to do alright. I'll also create a new profile, where I'll setup the indi canon driver, maybe that will be more stable.

Kind regards,

AstroRookie

[alacant]

57 minutes ago, AstroRookie said:

the indi server logs

 

[AstroRookie]

34 minutes ago, alacant said:

 

Hello Alacant,

KStars crashed again in the midst of the capture session (after 101). This is what I've found in /var/log/kern.log:

Nov  6 22:41:00 astroberry kernel: [20391.858425] Out of memory: Killed process 31870 (kstars) total-vm:948012kB, anon-rss:302620kB, file-rss:3340kB, shmem-rss:27576kB, UID:1001 pgtables:1328kB oom_score_adj:0

I'll try to take some darks, some flats tomorrow morning, but for now it's enough. I'll update the system tomorrow, and try again tomorrow evening.

Thanks for your help!

AstroRookie

 

[JamesF]

2 minutes ago, AstroRookie said:

Out of memory: Killed process 31870 (kstars)

That's not good.  How much memory does your RPi have?

James

[alacant]

Yeah. Out of memory. 

When starting, you need to be able to take the hardware for granted. Give yourself a fighting chance. The software is difficult enough as it is!

I always recommend starting with a decent computer. Switch to a pi when you have learned the ropes.

Cheers

Edited November 6, 2020 by alacant

[CedricTheBrave]

how much space on the camera card

[CedricTheBrave]

min runs on a 4gb rpi and never comes close to using more than 30%

[AstroRookie]

3 minutes ago, JamesF said:

That's not good.  How much memory does your RPi have?

James

Hello James,

astroberry@astroberry:~ $ free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            804         176         359          18         268         551
Swap:            99          99           0

memTotal:         823476 kB
MemFree:          360836 kB
MemAvailable:     563952 kB

 

[JamesF]

I think you're going to struggle with that little.  You could add more swap as a file on the SD card, but it won't be good for performance.

James

[AstroRookie]

8 minutes ago, JamesF said:

I think you're going to struggle with that little.  You could add more swap as a file on the SD card, but it won't be good for performance.

James

Exactly what I'm doing now

[stash_old]

You also have to make sure the the Noise reduction settings (if your camera has them) are switched off else on Linux (Gphoto/Canon driver) it causes aborts and leaves "zombie threads" - its in the FAQ for DSLR - On my camera the bottom right of the LCD just keeps flashing or I get a display on the Camera LCD saying "recording". No other recourse but to switch of the Camera, Power off the PI. Then make sure the Noise reduction setting is switched off before starting again.  https://www.indilib.org/devices/cameras/gphoto.html

I use a RPI3b+ 1GB and it has no problems with running a DSLR (Canon 100d) so unless you have something else that is eating memory I doubt your 4gb is running out of memory(RAM). Also check you SD card - High quality Samsung and Sandsk(SanDisk Extreme MicroSDHC 100MB s A1 C10 V30 UHSI U3 32GB) should be used - cheapo ones can cause problems.

[AstroRookie]

Well, I've increased the swap, now I want to take a test dark, and now it's stuck in the download of the capture (I tried saving on an external ssd as well as on the SD). As for the SD card I always take Samsung Evo ... ones. I have noise reduction turned off.

I'll give it an other try tomorrow after having removed all unnecessary processes. But apart from conky, I don't see what else I could stop.

But if stash_old can do it with a RPI3b, I can't see why it would not work on RPI4.

But for now, I'll call it a day ...

AstroRookie

[AstroRookie]

Ok, here's what I did today:

• Stopped and disabled a bunch of unnecessary services, alsa (sound), nginx (web server - I don't use astroberry web interface), bluetooth, avahi (some multi-cast dns service), triggerhappy (no keyboard directly connected needed,  either go via vnc or ssh)
• Increased swap to 2GB
• Started kstars+ekos
• Deleted the existing ekos profile and created a new one
• Started a capture sequence of 60s x 60
• Monitored memory usage during capture

Conclusion: at the end there was some 35MB free memory, which is too little, so ordered the new Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB memory; the one I use now will serve as backup for the one that controls my chicken coop, or I could make a fault tolerant solution for my chicken coop (not that it is needed, that pi is running since 2016 without any problem, I think it only has been rebooted 2 or 3 times since then), plenty of time with the bad weather that's coming up 😉

AstroRookie

Edited November 7, 2020 by AstroRookie

[JamesF]

I'm intrigued.  What does your RPi control in your chicken coop? :)

James

[AstroRookie]

9 minutes ago, JamesF said:

I'm intrigued.  What does your RPi control in your chicken coop?

James

Hello James,

we have foxes in the area, and though I found foxes fascinating animals, I don't want them to eat my chickens. So the pi is controlling the door of the coop via a stepper motor from an abandoned printer. I used a stepper motor because the coop is not high enough to have a door that goes down and up, so the door moves from right to left, to close and from left to right to open. I used a stepper motor because I did not want to make it too complicated with sensors and so. There's a small web interface to setup the number of steps, and the time before or after sunrise the door has to open or close and some log info when the door opened/closed.  The pi is also configured as a hotspot, so I have wifi when am lying in my hammock in the summer (but it's not very performant).

Kind regards,

AstroRookie