I've now experienced both of these errors multiple times now and I'm not sure what is causing it. This is with the AC4040BSI. we have two separate USB extension cables for the AC4040 and the Guider. There are no hubs.
Can you send over the ACP and MaxIm logs? In MaxIm, View Log Window. Right Click. Enable Timestamps. Right Click again, Open Log Folder.
This MaxIm log only had errors for when it could not find a guide star. No other errors logged. Can I get the ACP logs as well? Otherwise I can't correlate the MaxIm activities to what was being commanded. ACP will have one log for the console and one for the observing activity, may depend on whether you had scheduler running as well. ACP Console log will usually be somewhere like: ...\ACP Web Data\Doc Root\logs\OPERATORNAME\20220310 and filename will be something like 20220310@071527.log
Here is the log file from ACP. Like I said Maxim DL would just hang waiting for the filter wheel. If I didn't do anything it never recovered but if I switched filters in the drop down and started an exposure it would start working again
Oh this is not going to be easy now that I've looked at the ACP log. The ACP task to find the focus offsets for the filters was running. That means ACP was invoking FocusMax which is commanding MaxIm DL Pro to take images. I see a bunch of FocusMax errors happening, no stuck situations with MaxIm are obvious to me. So here's the sequence (edited for the key steps): ACP - 09:47:19 Switching from Ha to S-II filter for imaging MDL - 09:47:20 MaxIm moved to filter 6 ACP - 09:47:31 Switching from S-II to OPEN filter for pointing exposure MDL - 09:47:32 Filter wheel moving to position 10 ACP - 09:47:54 Switching from OPEN to S-II filter for imaging MDL - 09:47:55 Filter wheel moving to position 6 Focus Max kicks in: FMX - 09:48:00 02:48:00.12 Taking initial image MDL - 09:48:00>4 Started 1.000s 3072x3072 exposure, binned 1x1, ROI (512, 512) MDL - 09:48:01>4 Completed 1.000s 3072x3072 exposure, binned 1x1, ROI (512, 512) So now we have the image successfully, but FocusMax runs out of memory!!! FMX - 09:48:04 02:48:04.13 ...Looking for star FMX - 09:48:04 02:48:04.36 ...Superbin: 30 FMX - 09:48:06 02:48:06.59 Error: -2147221404 Out of memory FocusMax.modImageAnalysis.FindStars So let's continue looking through the logs. ACP - 09:49:12 Measuring O-III filter... ACP - 09:49:12 Switching from S-II to O-III filter for imaging MDL - 09:49:13>4 Filter wheel moving to position 7 ACP - 09:49:24 Switching from O-III to OPEN filter for pointing exposure MDL - 09:49:26>4 Filter wheel moving to position 10 And everything is fine there.... So let's continue looking ACP - 09:49:47 Switching from OPEN to O-III filter for imaging MDL - 09:49:48>4 Filter wheel moving to position 7 FMX - 09:49:53 02:49:53.24 Taking initial image MDL - 09:49:53>4 Started 1.000s 3072x3072 exposure, binned 1x1, ROI (512, 512) MDL - 09:49:55>4 Completed 1.000s 3072x3072 exposure, binned 1x1, ROI (512, 512) FMX - 09:49:57 02:49:57.49 ...Looking for star FMX - 09:49:58 02:49:57.74 ...Superbin: 30 FMX - 09:49:58 02:49:58.51 Error: -2147221404 Out of memory FocusMax.modCameraImage.ConvertArray2ZeroBase FMX - 09:49:58 02:49:58.74 Error: ConvertArray2ZeroBase(Image0Base) FMX - 09:49:59 02:49:59.71 No star found Again, FocusMax is having trouble. I don't see any hardware errors in the MaxIm log. BTW, do you know the approximate time you were "manually" changing the filter to get things "unstuck"? I don't see evidence of things sticking. (I'll have another look at your screen shots to see if you snagged the time of the event). This is a "multiple boss problem" - if you manually change something in the MDL UI, FMAX and ACP are not notified of this. I think we may need to loop in @Bob Denny and Steve Brady. My suspicions are the images aren't what FMAX is expecting somehow, or there is a pointer bug there. If I think of anything else, will let you know.
I couldn't say the approximate time sadly. If I see it occur again. Well doing some more calibration. I'll note the time. Maybe even make a video or something. The out of memory I actually saw multiple times! Focus Max would continue to slowly fill with memory till it got to about 1.3 gigs and then start throwing that error and cause the script to fail. With the focus offset script, I think running through each filter five times and you're awesome filter wheel having 10 slots. It's doing a huge amount of focus runs! I would imagine either it's a memory leak or somehow a limit of the 32-bit software? In either case, I actually didn't know who or where to contact because I couldn't quickly find a forum for focusmax.
Um... I'm embarrased... I realized the JD was there in the ACP console shot = 2022-3-10 8:53:13.06 I see this in the MDL log: MDL - 08:50:06>4 Started 0.020s 100x100 exposure, binned 1x1, ROI (1991, 1994) MDL - 08:50:06>4 Completed 0.020s 100x100 exposure, binned 1x1, ROI (1991, 1994) ACP - 08:50:08 Switching from Ha to S-II filter for imaging MDL - 08:50:09>4 Filter wheel moving to position 6 ACP - 08:50:09 Start slew to Focus Area... ACP - 08:50:16 (wait for slew to complete) ACP - 08:50:20 (slew complete) ACP - 08:50:20 Updating pointing... ACP - 08:50:20 Switching from S-II to OPEN filter for pointing exposure ACP - 08:50:20 Focus change of -1236 steps required MDL - 08:50:21>4 Filter wheel moving to position 10 ACP - 08:50:21 (taking 5 sec. exposure, OPEN filter, binning = 1) ACP - 08:50:21 (using High Gain readout mode) ACP - 08:50:21 (starting exposure) MDL - 08:53:51>4 Filter wheel moving to position 9 **** Travis toggled it? MDL - 08:53:54>4 Filter wheel moving to position 10 MDL - 08:53:55>4 Started 5.000s 4096x4096 exposure, binned 1x1, ROI (0, 0) MDL - 08:54:00>4 Completed 5.000s 4096x4096 exposure, binned 1x1, ROI (0, 0) ACP - 08:54:01 (exposure complete) ACP - 08:54:04 (exposure complete and image downloaded) ACP - 08:54:05 Image finished So I guess you changed the filter at 8:53:51 as something was stuck then. Logs not telling me anything deeper than the start of the exposure happened.
Ok, FocusMax is by Steve Brady, supported by CCDWare https://ccdware.com/ccdware_technical_support/ I know Steve, so if you don't get anywhere on the CCDWare forum, let me know, and I can loop him in - super nice guy, very smart. As far as getting stuck goes as noted at 8:50:21, I'll talk to colleagues and see if they have some ideas - that will be on Monday, as it's too late in the day here. I'll also do something thinking and may come back to you with some ideas. One possible test scenario: Run MaxIm on it's own. Set up an Autosave sequence so it does a pile of trash images, but have it keep changing the filters. Then we can see if it gets tuck. Camera Control Window - Expose tab - [Autosave] Set up an autosave sequence, make sure that it is not grouping by slot, so that it alternates filters.
