An apology and advice

LewisM · #1 10-10-2013, 09:46 AM

After numerous frustrations with PHD for many months, I finally resolved the issue - it was corrupted DLL's.

I had installed the latest PHD without removing the old PHD. For some reason, this seems to have corrupted or caused mishandling of the PHD commands. I completely unistalled ALL versions recently, and scrubbed the registry thoroughly of ANY PHD DLL's etc.

I ran it again as a test when I was about to shut down for the night at 1am after guiding with MaxIM for the past 4 hours flawlessly. Well, PHD locked on, and stayed locked, so I let it run. Got up at 2am and it was still locked on NGC 908

Changed targets, went to bed again, and got up at 4am but this time I saw to my horror that my computer had done a system upgrade automatically and restarted - OUCH! Still managed almost 1 hour on B33.

So, to Craig Stark, I apologise for any bad press I gave PHD. It works a treat. Advice to users is if you upgrade and get issues, ALWAYS fully delete the old files and registry entries. Most programmes these days don't require it, but perhaps sometimes it is the root of some issues.

I must also say how simply incredible the Vixen GPD2 is. It sat there for almost 1 hour, tracking by itself with no guidance from anything but the Synscan system, and it was still dead centre on Alnitak! BIG thumbs up to the precision of Vixen and the Synscan GOTO kit!

lazjen (Chris) · #2 10-10-2013, 09:48 AM

Good to hear you got it solved. Maybe drop a line/edit posts in any thread that you had issues with PHD and point to this post? At least then if anyone searches in the future, they'll connect with your solution.

niko · #3 10-10-2013, 10:01 AM

maybe delete the poll as well

Barrykgerdes · #4 12-10-2013, 10:16 AM

There is an ever increasing problem with Dll's in Windows. The Winsxs folder of Win 7 now holds in excess of 6 GB of variations in dll's for different programs.

Barry

DavidTrap (David) · #5 12-10-2013, 10:19 AM

The "old windows update at 3am" - need to turn that off or at least change it to high noon for any computer used for astronomy!

DT

naskies (Dave) · #6 12-10-2013, 10:47 AM

I used to help develop installers for software on Windows platforms... if you think it's a nightmare as a user, it's even worse for the poor programmers!

The Windows DLL and COM system is complex, and DLLs/EXEs can easily get held open even though it looks like you've quit the program. The "protection" system against corruption and malware in recent versions of Windows causes even more grief. If you try to upgrade a program, sometimes one or two DLLs may fail to update because a COM object is still active - leaving you with an inconsistent program.

The safest bet is usually to reboot, completely uninstall the old version, reboot again, install the upgraded version (with administrator privileges), reboot again, and *then* run the program. Of course, that's a pain in the proverbial so most of us just take shortcuts and upgrade in place and/or skip a few reboots

Barrykgerdes · #7 12-10-2013, 11:29 AM

Very true Dave

The problem with a reboot now is it takes about 6 minutes now. (even after extensive cleanups)

I tend to leave the computers running for weeks on end before the garbage becomes unbearable and you are forced into a cleanup and reboot. When I do this it is plenty of time to go and make a cup of coffee.

Barry