Resolved STF-8300 Connecting to TSX64 Win 11

I cannot get my STF-8300 nor my ST-i to connect in TSX64 running on a Win 11 machine. “A necessary Driver was not found. Error 217”. I am running all the same updated drivers on my Windows 10 machine and my 2 SBIG cameras connect and work perfectly in my currently operational observatory. I have moved all of my programs over to a Windows 11 machine. All of the programs (TSX64 (10.5.0 Build13507) Paramount MX, PHD2, Voyager, Viking, Ascom 6.6 SP1) are working great. The only thing not working is connecting to my main imaging camera STF-8300M. I have been a TSX/TSX64/STF-8300M user for over 10 years, but this is my first experience with Win 11. I also have a ZWO camera which connects just fine with TSX64's Camera Plugin. I have run the SBIGDriverChecker64 on the Win 11 machine to make sure all of the drivers are up to date. Also, both SBIG cameras connect and work with PHD2 on the Win 11 machine.

 

Thanks Doug for the quick response. With all the experiments I have run, I see Error 217 in my dreams I am definitely thinking there is a problem with the TSX64 install, my two SBIG camera run fine with PHD2 on the Win 11 machine, but I will also try CCDOPS. I have lost count as to how many times I have run SBIGDriverChecker64. I will let you know what happens with CCDOPS.

 

Error 217 is a TheSkyX error meaning it can't find a DLL for a given device X2 plugin or direct support. In this case it (TheSkyX) probably tries to load a SBIG DLL that it can't find. As you're using TheSkyX 64 bit, it looks for a 64 bit DLL for the SBIG cameras.
Check on your machine in C:\Program Files (x86)\Software Bisque\TheSkyX Professional Edition\TheSky64 and see if there is a SBIGUDrv.dll in it. If yes, may be that DLL is itself relying on another DLL that is not present on your system. I believe the SBIGDriverChecker64 should install all needed dll (drivers) but on some system depending on Windows settings it an happen that installer are not able to write in some places or register dll properly on the system. There are ways to re-register a dll from the command line if that's the issue. The version of the SBIGUDrv.dll I see in TheSky64 is 4.9.9.8 (you can check this by right clicking on it and looking at the Details panel).
I no longer have a STF camera so I can't really test more than that.

 

Thanks rpineau for the response. The SBIGUDrv.dll is present, but I will check the version when I get back in town later today. I think you are onto something about registering the dll. Do you have the steps on how to do that from the command line? Who knows what may be going on in Win11. This is my first-time using Win 11 so I am not surprised. The TSX64 forum suggested trying CCDOPS and seeing if the STF-8300 talks to it. Even if it does, that doesn't give me a solution for using TSX64.

 

Wow, great news. There may be hope yet Can't wait to get home and try this out.

 

Doug, well apparently, I don't know how to manually install the dll. I downloaded the file and placed it in C:\Program Files (x86)\Software Bisque\TheSkyX Professional Edition\TheSky64 folder and then tried to register it via an administrator cmd window: C:\Windows\SysWOW64>regsvr32 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Software Bisque\TheSkyX Professional Edition\TheSky64\SBIGUDrv.dll and got the following error. Ugh! Was this not the right steps I got from YouTube? Can you give me the proper steps to manually install the dll?
"

 

I did a dumpbin on the SBIGUDrv.dll and it looks like it's not statically linked against the MSVC lib :

Image has the following dependencies:

Dump of file SBIGUDrv.dll

File Type: DLL

Image has the following dependencies:

VERSION.dll
WSOCK32.dll
KERNEL32.dll
USER32.dll
ADVAPI32.dll
VCRUNTIME140.dll
api-ms-win-crt-math-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-stdio-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-time-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll



Seeing "VCRUNTIME140.dll" is a clear sign the dll needs the MSVC runtime.
Here is what a statically linked dll reports for dependencies :

Dump of file libPlayerOne.dll

File Type: DLL

Image has the following dependencies:

KERNEL32.dll
SETUPAPI.dll
USER32.dll


So you might need to install this : https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe (this is from Microsoft directly from this page : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-US/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170 ).

 

TX Doug I will give this a try in the morning. Unfortunately, I have to go to work in another observatory tonight to install a new camera. I will let you know what happen in the morning.

 

PROBLEM SOLVED...Thanks Doug. Installing the 64-bit version of MSVC was the answer. All my cameras are connecting to TSX64 . I appreciate the time you spent to help me resolve this problem. Clear Skies.

 

Hum... by Doug you mean rpineau (aka Rodolphe)....

 

Indeed I do mean you. Thanks for the final solution. Cheers.