Deep Sky Stacker - Crashing constantly

[Jasp05]

Hi guys,

Been using DSS for about a week now and had nothing but trouble with it.

For some reason it likes to crash. Says the program encountered an unexpected error and stops working. (happens when registering offset).

Now from what I've read online they say its an issue with running out of memory. I'm running 16gb of ram and the highest usage I've seen of the program whilst stacking is 600-700mb. My total system ram usage is under 15% when the crash happens. (CPU usage is not maxed either).

Does anyone have a fix for this. I've been able to have one set of exposures stacked out of 10-15 tries. To be clear also, no drizzle is selected. Using standard settings on everything. Also running most up to date version 3.3.4

5 sec subs, 800 iso, bout 20-30 of them in total. Not sure why it's giving me so much grief :mad2:

And does anyone use any other programs for stacking?

[glend]

How big are the individual sub files?
Is your computer set for performance mode, not balanced or power savings?
I have used DSS for years with no crashes, hangs, or other problems.

[Jasp05]

Subs are 25-30mb each. Its not on power saving etc.

Ive tried reinstalling dss and still no luck. Im going to try on another computer and see if that helps. Might at least tell me if its something to do with that pc o if its theprogram itself.

The subs themselves shouldnt cause dss to crash right? Like if its out of focus image or some other problem?

[Jasp05]

As an update, I've gone as far as to reinstall windows on this pc to see if it would fix my DSS issue.

I am still getting the crash at exactly the same point of the process. I use this pc for gaming and have even stressed tested it (artificial 100% load on CPU, Ram and GPU) and it has no issues.


I've posted to DSS yahoo group a few days ago, and am still awaiting a response.

Is there any other software that will work for stacking images of star fields?

I've found some other programs but their more for stacking images to get your star trails etc.

[Jasp05]

Forgot to mention also that I have 2 other laptops with windows 10 installed.

Neither of these computers will even open Deep sky stacker.. No pop up boxes or anything, just that the program will make my mouse cursor look like the pc is loading something and then nothing.

If anyone has any idea of how to fix this I may be able to just process on one of my laptops...

[JA]

Perhaps you could try an earlier version and see what happens

and/or

try a different input image file type, if possible for test purposes to help narrow down the problem

Best
JA

[Jasp05]

Deepsky stacker will not stack a full frame in previous versions. Something they built in to stop people using the older versions.

And i have tried a different file format. Was using cr.2 raw and converted to dng which still produced the same crash.

Honestly dont know what else to do here. Short of doing it manually in photoshop...

[jenchris]

Drizzle used to stuff my lappy up.

[JA]

You mentioned that you'd stacked 20-30 and it crashed. What happens when you try and stack fewer images? Try to find if there is a minimum that will work, even though as you say there appears to be no processor or memory limitation.

Also try another PC that will load DSS, to see if any different

Best
JA

[RickS]

You might also find there's one or more particular subs that are causing the crashes and that leaving them out fixes the problem. This can be caused by an error in the format of a file or by correct data that triggers a bug in DSS.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Jasp05]

I have tried using a different set of images that I had stacked successfully previously, and they hadn't worked either, which makes me think it shouldn't be an issue with the subs themselves.

I did try JA's thought of the earlier version, (even though it doesn't stack the full picture) it did complete the stacking process. that was on version 3.3.2

So the old version "works" but effectively is no good because of the cropped picture size.

I'm on my work computer right now stacking the images with the latest version of DSS just fine on a windows 7 pc.

I've now tried 3 pc's with 64 bit windows all with 8gb+ ram and they are recent builds (12 months or so old). 2 of these pc's work but my main one does not.

And I still can't get DSS to open on my windows 10 laptops. Shows up in the processes in task manager but suddenly dissappears with no error or dialogue boxes. Have tried compatibility issues and a few other things to no avail.


I guess I may just have to run the stacking whilst im at work :P

[RickS]

There are plenty of other software options for stacking but I can't think of any that are free apart from DSS.

[Slawomir]

Also, some software with stacking ability can be used for some time for free for evaluation. I think guys at Pleiades Astrophoto offer an option to try awesome PixInsight for free for 45 days? ;)

[rcheshire]

If you are only stacking and don't need to calibrate, you could try Hugin panorama stitcher. It's free. It does a very good job 99% of the time. Video demo is Linux but just a matter of making the same selections in your Windows box.
Hugin video zip (http://synergous.com/flatpress/fp-content/attachs/icapshugin.m4v.zip)

Hugin (http://hugin.sourceforge.net/download/)

EDIT: convert raw to tiff first with dcraw.
craw -4 -o 0 -r 1 1 1 1 -t 0 -k 0 -H 1 -T *.CR2

add -q 2 for ppg debayer, which seem to produce fewer colour artefacts. -q 1 for VNG

If you are stacking 5 second subs DSS might fail due lack of features. May depend on what's in the image. If longer subs stack ok, might be the issue.

[Jasp05]

I have gone and signed up for the trial of pixinsight. which I must say looks really good. But a big learning curve in that one.



This issue with DSS has done my head in for the last week and I think I have to admit defeat. (I'd rather be out taking pics than fighting with software).

I will just have to stack on another computer for the mean time. Hopefully DSS will bring out another update soon and my problem is resolved. :lol:

Thanks for all the help and suggestions guys. Much appreciated.

[RickS]

That's certainly true but there are a bunch of people here and on the PI Forum who are generally willing to help.

I did think of a free option too, but no OSC support: http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=148715

Cheers,
Rick.

[rcheshire]

Good choice. The preprocessing tools are excellent.

[skysurfer]

Try version 3.34.

http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html click on the 3.3.4 link.

I run this app on a Windows 10 VM in a VirtualBox on macOS and allocated just one GB to Windows, so very confined.
So 16GB on native windows will not be a problem at all.
Runs like a charm. 25 frames of 25MB each (EOS 6: 20MP full CR2) works fine.

DO NOT USE the drizzle setting, that is applying for a crash or hang.

I tried PI a year ago, but I consider it very unintuitive, so I am not gonna pay $370 (A$500) for this app.

[bojan]

I am using DSS 3.34 (on XP professional, w'7) without any issues/problems (no drizzling))

IRIS will also do stacking, but it is a bit counter-intuitive... however, it can be scripted.

[Slawomir]

Aaron, there are some very good tutorials on the web to help you to get your head around PI. It takes a bit of time to master it, but I actually had (and still have) fun slowly exploring different functions and settings. It is a very stable platform, recently I did a drizzle integration on 108 subs 36 MB each on my laptop with 4GB RAM...it sure took a while to complete it though :lol:

I also used my 4GB computer to stack 270 Bias frames several times, no probs at all.

Yes, I know, I do need more RAM :lol:

Suavi

[rcheshire]

Is it that much nowadays?

[RickS]

Nope... 230 EUR or approx $330 AUD.

[sil]

So you're not willling to put in any effort yourself? No its not intuitive or a beginners package but nor would I say AstroArt, Nebulosity etc are either. Bought them all myself but settled on PI as my choice. I have a workflow that doesn't depend on the shot and i refine/expand as i learn more. Haven't found a single problem PI can't deal with if i put in the effort to read the documentation and learn.I find it well worth the price but I actually use it. Anyone looking for a simple solution that does everything automatically well it doesn't exist. Your images will reflect your efforts AP is about the processing.