Please fix "Lost connection to powerbox" with SGP

Feature requests / 3rd party software development
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buckeyestargazer
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2021 2:36 pm

Please fix "Lost connection to powerbox" with SGP

Post by buckeyestargazer »

I have a Powerbox Advance and use SGP v4 beta. Upon starting SGP an error message pops up from Pegasus Astro saying "Lost connection to powerbox." This error repeats over and over. The temporary solution is to power on all equipment and connect the powerbox and equipment before starting SGP. But this is very impractical because many people (myself included) create sequences in SGP on a separate computer without any equipment attached or running and this error message pops up repeatedly.

This has already been raised with SGP. Here is their response:
"In this case, the Pegasus driver is presenting that message box. In general, drivers should never attempt to control or alter the user interface unless it is expected as part of a contract (e.g. settings dialogs, etc)… especially if it blocks further execution of the consuming application (this type of message box does block). It seems like the root of the problem is that the driver does not tell SGPro that there was a problem connecting, but rather indicates the connection went fine and then, afterward, not as part of the communication to establish the connection, pops this error up, despite never actually being connected. Instead of “polling” for a lost connection or other error state, ASCOM drivers should just alter internal state to reflect the issue and then, when an action is requested that, due to the error state, cannot be fulfilled, an exception should be raised and place the burden of communication on the client application (SGPro) (i.e. drivers should behave in a transactional way). SGPro asks for something and the driver either handles it or says why it can’t, but does not attempt to communicate in an unsolicited manner."

As a regular user who has no understanding of what's going on here, this issue is quite annoying. I hope that either Pegasus or SGP can get this fixed.
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Evans
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Re: Please fix "Lost connection to powerbox" with SGP

Post by Evans »

Our latest Ascom driver resolves this issue
https://pegasusastro.com/wp-content/upl ... h-v2_3.zip
buckeyestargazer
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2021 2:36 pm

Re: Please fix "Lost connection to powerbox" with SGP

Post by buckeyestargazer »

OK thanks! I had updated the Pegasus software but not the ASCOM driver.
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