Asiair pro no licence file

[AstroNebulee]

Hi whilst backing up my asiair pro sd card I saw there's no licence file in the boot partition. How do I go about getting a license. I have entered my serial number on a zwo website and got the qr code but how to I scan or even get the license 

Edited July 27, 2021 by AstroNebulee

[StevieDvd]

Have you tried starting the AAP? It should prompt for a license and let you scan the QR code on your phone camera or select an image of it in your album. Then it will write a file to the sd-card so that process is not repeated next time you boot, presumably they check the license file on startup to ensure the correct PI board is being used.

[AstroNebulee]

44 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

Have you tried starting the AAP? It should prompt for a license and let you scan the QR code on your phone camera or select an image of it in your album. Then it will write a file to the sd-card so that process is not repeated next time you boot, presumably they check the license file on startup to ensure the correct PI board is being used.

Hi Stevie 

No when I powered up my AAP for the first time it never asked to scan any qr code and worked right from the off. I have since entered the serial number of my AAP in the zwo website and obtained a qr code now but there's no way of scanning it in my AAP, as I don't know how to scan the qr code in the app 

Edited July 28, 2021 by AstroNebulee

[StevieDvd]

With the original sd card in the AAP it should start up and connect, or possible do an update. I've not used the website to enter a serial number but have been prompted for the license and used a picture of the QR code when asked.

Did you back up the card before using it as that boot folder looks very bare compared with mine. Can you connect and use the AAP via the app with both the original & backup cards?

 

[AstroNebulee]

3 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

With the original sd card in the AAP it should start up and connect, or possible do an update. I've not used the website to enter a serial number but have been prompted for the license and used a picture of the QR code when asked.

Did you back up the card before using it as that boot folder looks very bare compared with mine. Can you connect and use the AAP via the app with both the original & backup cards?

 

When I first received my AAP I did indeed back up this sd card to my laptop. Then when I powered on my AAP it did an update to firmware 8.11. So then I made another back up after the updated firmware.

The image of the boot folder is straight off the original sd card. 

I have used the AAP from the original sd card. But not from the back up copy sd card I've made, I will try that when I get home. 

This is the link to the zwo website where I entered my S/N on the app and received my qr code.

 https://asiair.en.zwo.biz/#/license

Edited July 28, 2021 by AstroNebulee

[AstroNebulee]

I have tried using my backup sd card from the image file of my original and doesn't work, when I use win32disk image to copy my original to the back sd I get this screen come up. I have ordered a new sd card as my back up was saying 29.53gb and no way could I make it 32gb and I couldn't fit all the original on that one. I've also emailed zwo for a licence, so I'm hoping they'll send me my licence file. 

Edited July 28, 2021 by AstroNebulee

[StevieDvd]

I believe with Win32 you need to format the sdcard before writing to it. I use a program called Rufus to write my images to sd-card, tends to work more reliably for me.

If you know your way around Disk Manager in Windows you can see what's been left on the sd-card, possibly a small linux partition.

 

[AstroNebulee]

29 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

I believe with Win32 you need to format the sdcard before writing to it. I use a program called Rufus to write my images to sd-card, tends to work more reliably for me.

If you know your way around Disk Manager in Windows you can see what's been left on the sd-card, possibly a small linux partition.

 

Yep I've tried disk manager and several other programs to format the sd card but still only showing 29.53gb our of 32gb and only the one partition on it. which is just to short to apply the back up to. So I've ordered a new sd card the same as the one on the AAP now. I'm hoping this will have the correct amount of space. 

I've been in contact on the zwo forum about no licence. They are saying that these new AAP don't have the licence file in the boot partition anymore but in another partition. So I've asked them which partition is it in, because they said if I can power up the AAP and get to use it then it's already got its license??? I'm completely baffled by this. My new sd card will be delivered moro so I'm going to try and add my backup to that and let you know what happens after that. 

[powerlord]

hi, there are linux partitions on there, you need to use a raspberry pi type imager to make a copy.

saying that, I'm on a mac, and I found pibaker and etcher failed to make an image properly. Or failed to write it - i forget which. they seem to assume there is only oner partition and either only image one, or only restore one

windoze will be different, but you want to be using something like that - a raspberry pi imager. make an img file. and to be sure it will work, write it to a new card and try it.

oh and don't worry about  the 29.52/32 thing.

for the mac, i found diskutil images ok (creates img with all partitions), and then etcher can be used to write that.

Edited July 28, 2021 by powerlord

[AstroNebulee]

53 minutes ago, powerlord said:

hi, there are linux partitions on there, you need to use a raspberry pi type imager to make a copy.

saying that, I'm on a mac, and I found pibaker and etcher failed to make an image properly. Or failed to write it - i forget which. they seem to assume there is only oner partition and either only image one, or only restore one

windoze will be different, but you want to be using something like that - a raspberry pi imager. make an img file. and to be sure it will work, write it to a new card and try it.

oh and don't worry about  the 29.52/32 thing.

for the mac, i found diskutil images ok (creates img with all partitions), and then etcher can be used to write that.

Hi Stu

Thank you. I'll try Rufus that Stevie uses and see how I get on with that. 

[AstroNebulee]

An update on the thread I started. My new San disk 32gb sd card arrived today and I've used the rufus programme on my Windows laptop, so simple and much better than the win32 disk image and installed my back up of the sd card from my asiair pro and works perfectly. I tried the same with the 32gb card from before and just wouldn't load properly on my AAP so that sd card must be corrupt some how. But at least I have the original card tucked away and just using my new copy. Thank you for your help in all of this.

Clear skies 

[fozzybear]

14 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

An update on the thread I started. My new San disk 32gb sd card arrived today and I've used the rufus programme on my Windows laptop, so simple and much better than the win32 disk image and installed my back up of the sd card from my asiair pro and works perfectly. I tried the same with the 32gb card from before and just wouldn't load properly on my AAP so that sd card must be corrupt some how. But at least I have the original card tucked away and just using my new copy. Thank you for your help in all of this.

Clear skies 

the card that you say is corrupt. with your card reader plugged in to the RPI you can re-format it making sure you format the right card. I have used "SD card formater v4.0" on windows pc but if does not play properly then format it on a linux machine.  

[AstroNebulee]

18 minutes ago, fozzybear said:

the card that you say is corrupt. with your card reader plugged in to the RPI you can re-format it making sure you format the right card. I have used "SD card formater v4.0" on windows pc but if does not play properly then format it on a linux machine

When I put the corrupt sd card on my AAP it just does nothing and when I try to write the AAP back up file to it it says write error at the end. I'm not to worried as I have my new back up sd card now 

[fozzybear]

9 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

when I try to write the AAP back up file to it it says write error at the end.

are you doing this on the RPi or PC (windows) just to check

[AstroNebulee]

18 minutes ago, fozzybear said:

are you doing this on the RPi or PC (windows) just to check

On the windows laptop 

[fozzybear]

4 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

On the windows laptop 

I have had problems with USB pendrives as well and unable to reformat them on windows pc once they have had a linux image on them I had to plug them into my RPI and format them on that as how hard I tried on windows just would not format properly. So maybe give it a go to recover that SD card 

[AstroNebulee]

13 minutes ago, fozzybear said:

I have had problems with USB pendrives as well and unable to reformat them on windows pc once they have had a linux image on them I had to plug them into my RPI and format them on that as how hard I tried on windows just would not format properly. So maybe give it a go to recover that SD card 

The trouble is when I put the sd card into my AAP it just does nothing so there's no way to format it via this way 

[AstroNebulee]

On 28/07/2021 at 12:40, StevieDvd said:

Did you back up the card before using it as that boot folder looks very bare compared with mine. Can you connect and use the AAP via the app with both the original & backup cards?

Hi Stevie 

Thanks to a helpful chap on the zwo forum, he said to open up my sd card and check view hidden files box and low and behold all the files including the licensed file popped up. Such an easy thing to do to cure the issue of my licence. 

Edited July 30, 2021 by AstroNebulee