QHY native driver camera crashes after filterwheel disconnection

[Former user]

Hi everybody, When using the QHY native driver, the camera crashes after filterwheel disconnection. It works properly with the ASCOM drivers. Regards, Michael

[Dale Ghent]

Hi, don’t see what you mean in the screenshots that are provided. Can you describe the situation in more detail?

[Michael]

As you can see in the picture “after”, the picture in the middle, the temperature setting crashes (peak) after disconnecting the filter wheel.

[Dale Ghent]

I just prefer a written description of the issue rather than trying to decipher screenshots that show no obvious error. The dead line in the cooler graph could have been you turning the cooler off, so it didn’t necessarily indicate any problem.

[Stefan B]

Is it only the temperature causing problems after disconnect or are other areas affected as well?

[Michael]

Dear Stefan, only the temp regulation crashes after switching off the filter wheel. @Dale: The screenshot is for documentation and for visual illustration. The pic labeled with „…after“ illustrates the peak/crash in cooling immediately after switching off the filter wheel.

[Michael]

I did some further tests this evening. The camera crashes completely after disconnecting the filter wheel, not only the temperature regulation. I have to perform a restart. The same when using the native filter wheel driver in combination with the ASCOM camera driver. No problems with the ASCOM camera in combination with the ASCOM filter wheel driver.

[Dale Ghent]

I have to ask - why are you disconnecting the filter wheel and then trying to continue to use the camera? I am able to reproduce this, but the general expectation is that if you are disconnecting the filter wheel, you are likely disconnecting the camera as well. Is this issue presenting some sort of operational blocker?

[Michael]

Indeed, it‘s not really a problem of practical operation, but it‘s an issue you have to know, because disconnecting the filter wheel causes to crash the camera and you have to restart NINA.

[Steve Lang]

So, I believe that I have encountered this, but the other way around. I haven't yet had time to reproduce/document this.

My use case is when adjusting spacing, I would disconnect the camera, then power off. Often, I had the f/w connected and powered on. It was highly reproducible doing this, and reconnecting and power up the camera results in strange behaviour (Camera appearing with wrong resolution and options, generally qhy driver is borked. Sometimes have had to power off imaging system to clear driver, although later tests I could kill a relevant process and that may have worked.)

In my case, I was going to suggest/ask that if you disconnect a camera where a reliant f/w is connected, perhaps a warning box or option to disconnect that as well is presented to the user. That seemed to make sense to me when dealing with hardware that relies on each other when one is terminated.

[Stefan B]

Adjust priority, as the use case is not a main flow.