Solved NINA Park fail - updated ASCOM driver 7.1.26. or 7.1.2.5?

  • Sturaro
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19 Mar 2023 10:50 - 19 Mar 2023 10:52 #1133 by Sturaro
NINA Park fail was created by Sturaro
Hi,
I'm using N.I.N.A. with my Avalon m-uno.
I found one issue: when from NINA User Interfacce or Advanced Sequence I try to park the mount immediatly I get the error: "Park operation appears to have been cancelled by an external process".
Looking at the NINA source code this happes becouse the code expect that after calling the Park() command one of the property Slewing and AtPark is alwais true.
Avalon ASCOM Driver don't set the Slewing property while is parking. After some check I verify that also the FindHome operation have the same issue (and NINA raise an error).
It's visible also from the User Interfacce: the Bottom-Left indicator never show "Slewing" in this two operations.

StarGo Ver. 7.0.7
Firmware Ver. 6.4.0
Ascom Driver V.7.1.1.1

Thanks and best regards,

Mauro.
Last edit: 19 Mar 2023 10:52 by Sturaro.

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19 Mar 2023 18:46 #1134 by alphaastro
Replied by alphaastro on topic NINA Park fail
Hello Mauro,

I have the same problem with my M-Uno.

StarGo Verr. 7.03
Firmware Ver. 7.0.0
Ascom Driver V.7.0.0.32

CS, Rüdiger
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  • Stefano82
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20 Mar 2023 11:06 #1135 by Stefano82
Replied by Stefano82 on topic NINA Park fail
Hello

We just performed a check to verify the described behaviour and we found a similar warning message, as the one described in your post.

Clicking on the “Park” button inside N.I.N.A. trigger the following message: “Warning. Park operation cancelled”.

However, despite the warning message, the mount execute the Park correctly. This can be verified by watching the mount that slew in the chose Set Park position and checking the mount status in the StarGo and N.I.N.A. GUI: inside the StarGo the mount status is “PARKED” whereas on N.I.N.A. the arrows movement buttons are all greyed and disabled while only the “Unpark” button is blue and enabled.

In this status the system can be powered off.

We will inspect the code to see what’s going on but after this test we can see that the system currently is working fine.

We performed this test with the following configuration:

- StarGo Ver. 7.0.8
- Firmware Ver. 6.4.0
- Avalon ASCOM driver 7.1.2.0

Stefano
Avalon Instruments Team

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  • Sturaro
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20 Mar 2023 18:44 #1136 by Sturaro
Replied by Sturaro on topic NINA Park fail
Hi Stefano,
yes I confirm that even in my installation the mount performs the operation regularly.
Unfortunately, the status reported by the ASCOM driver makes NINA believe that the operation has failed, plus the system cannot tell when the operation will be finished.
With this in mind, I do not trust the application to go ahead and close the observatory roof because if the telescope was not parked properly the roof would hit it closing.

Mauro.

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22 Mar 2023 15:57 - 22 Mar 2023 15:57 #1137 by Stefano82
Replied by Stefano82 on topic NINA Park fail
Hi Mauro

We worked on our driver to prevent the N.I.N.A. warning message to be displayed.

We got this outcome sending immediately to N.I.N.A. the feedback about the mount park status, as soon as the command is sent, even if the telescope is still slewing.

In this way this kind of configuration seems to work fine but in our opinion the request to receive immediately the communication of the Park status as soon as the user press the Park button can be the reason of issues with other softwares.

That’s why we release a temporary link for the download of a beta version of the Avalon ASCOM driver that can allow you to work with your configuration, leaving at the same time the StarGo stable version keep on working as before, since most of the users didn’t report any issue in this moment. 

Below the download link:

www.dropbox.com/s/pg94t52oft1fqmf/Avalon..._park_issue.exe?dl=0  

Best regards

Stefano
Avalon Instruments Team
Last edit: 22 Mar 2023 15:57 by Stefano82.

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  • Sturaro
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23 Mar 2023 18:24 - 23 Mar 2023 19:24 #1139 by Sturaro
Replied by Sturaro on topic NINA Park fail
Hi Stefano,
thanks for the quick reply. 

I tried the fix you released, however the change is not correct: it is true that NINA no longer gives the error, but this way the program thinks that the telescope is already parked and starts to close the roof breaking everything.

The correct behavior is for the Park() command to set the Slewing property to true. Only when the telescope has reached its final position does the AtPark property become true and Slewing return false.

The telescope must always be in one of these three states:
- Stationary
- Tracking (including driving corrections)
- Slewing

In the case of your driver (official version) during the Parking and the FindHome action the telescope is moving but the Slewing property is not set consistently.

You can verify that the simulator provided by the ASCOM Initiative also behaves this way.

P.S. also in the fix version the Altitude and Azimuth properties are alwais 0.

Sorry for my nitpicking, but I work in a software company and I am used to pay attention to specifications and tests and also I am developing some tools using ASCOM drivers.

Best regards,
Mauro.

P.P.S. just found an explanation of correct behaviour on a similar Slewing property of the Dome Interface:  ascom-standards.org/COMDeveloper/Async.htm
Last edit: 23 Mar 2023 19:24 by Sturaro. Reason: reference added

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