nexdome / Firmware

NexDome Dome and Shutter Motor Kit Firmware
https://www.nexdome.com
Other
3 stars 6 forks source link

ASCOM Driver should warn the user if the firmware major version is higher than expected #41

Open w4sm opened 3 years ago

w4sm commented 3 years ago

I uploaded the 4.0.1 firmware to both my rotator and my shutter. Both reported successful uploads. However now I cannot connect to the dome. I get the attached error message every time I try. The port# is correct. I've tried cycling the power on everything with no success. I also tried reinstalling 4.0.1 and also reverting to 4.0.0 with no success, although firmware is installed correctly according to the message. I'm stumped. The log just shows a failure to connect. I have no problems installing the firmware.

w4sm commented 3 years ago

Problem solved. I needed to update to NexDomeControlSystem-4.0.0.exe as well as the firmware. Everything worked fine after that.

NameOfTheDragon commented 3 years ago

I'm glad you solved your problem. It's tempting to close the issue at that point, but this is probably worth keeping in open for a future version. The ASCOM driver checks for minimum compatible firmware version but it doesn't currently check for a maximum version. Based on the rules of semantic versioning, a major version increment would indicate breaking changes in the firmware protocol. The driver should probably therefore only accept the one major version that it was tested against. It should at least warn the user and create warning log entries if the firmware major version is higher than expected.

I don't think this is high priority but I'm going to update the title of the issue and keep it open in case we make another version of the driver. Thanks for reporting this.