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nexdome / ASCOM

NexDome ASCOM Driver
https://www.nexdome.com
MIT License
6 stars 7 forks source link

POTH doesn't always connect first time #7

Closed NameOfTheDragon closed 5 years ago

NameOfTheDragon commented 5 years ago

Initial investigation suggests that this might actually be a POTH issue as it appears to be disconnecting before the driver has finished initializing. The driver passes Conform testing and works with other ASCOM clients, so this is at least partly down to POTH. However, if we can work out what's going on then we should do what we can to try to mitigate the issue.

Note: POTH is no longer being maintained and it is recognized within the ASCOM developer community that it has come to the end of its service life. A replacement Scope/Dome hub has been released, and users may care to give that a try: https://github.com/ASCOMInitiative/ASCOMDeviceHub/releases

There is also the ASCOM Dome Control Panel, which is included in the ASCOM Platform.

NameOfTheDragon commented 5 years ago

NexDome-POTH-Misoperation-TYCO.LOG The attached DebugView log shows the POTH failure-to-launch issue. The driver appears to be getting garbage collected before it's had a chance to fully connect. This appears to be unique to POTH and other client applications don't have this problem.

NameOfTheDragon commented 5 years ago

After a lot of forensic investigation, we are convinced that this is an issue with POTH, because:

Therefore, there is nothing we can do about this.

Since POTH is old (written in VB6) and the author has disappeared, it is not being maintained and is probably unmaintanable, so it is very unlikely that this problem will ever get fixed. Therefore, our suggested workaround is to use alternative Scope-Dome sync/hub components, such as: