IC Capture continues to crash....

[oldfrankland]

Recently acquired the DMK21AU618. Increase in sensitivity in near IR, and especially at 6563A makes it great for H-alpha solar imaging. However, I am still having a problem with persitent periodic crashing of IC Capture. Exceedingly frustrating.

I'm running a 1.9GHz laptop with 2 Gig Ram and sizable hard drive storage.

There seems to be no ryhme or reason to the crashing. The software/camera work fine for a dozen AVIs, then it locks up and I have to reboot the computer. Then it may work fine with several dozen AVIs...then, crash.

Has anyone got a handle on why this problem persists even with the latest ICC version?

Thanks
Jim Ferreira
Livermore CA

[asimov]

Hi Jim. I never did find the source of the problem so I'm still stuck with (after 3 years) these randon crashes. The last time it happened (about a month ago) All I was doing was adjusting the gain slider for Pete's sake! But that's the nature of it..After saying this, I'll almost bet money that I'll have a crash tonight; Murphy's law lol.

[Stefan Geissler]

Hello

I am very sorry for the problems you encounter. But it is extremely hard to reproduce an error, which is erratic and whose only error message is "crash".
Do you have some more details?

[oldfrankland]

Hello

I am very sorry for the problems you encounter. But it is extremely hard to reproduce an error, which is erratic and whose only error message is "crash".
Do you have some more details?

Typically the program will lock up when I hit the stop button while recording an AVI. The recorded AVI file is corrupt and must be disposed of. Occasionally, the lock up will be accompanied by an error window indicating the program has encountered a problem and must close. Sometimes the program will close, but most time it does not close, instead locking up the computer and I have to re-boot.

As most other folks do not seem to have this problem with any regularity, I suspect that my laptop system is at least partly the problem.

The ACER laptop I'm using is a 1.9Ghz system running XP. The laptop has never been on-line and is used soley to run my 4 DMK cameras (one at a time).

Would going to a faster system possibly cure this problem? I have changed out camera cords, investing in high quality USB cords, but the crashes still persist.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Thanks
Jim

[Stefan Geissler]

Jim

we are investigating in this. A script is controlling IC Capture, so we do not need to press the start and stop button over hours on our own to reproduce the problem.

Hopefully, we can catch the problem.

[oldfrankland]

Jim

we are investigating in this. A script is controlling IC Capture, so we do not need to press the start and stop button over hours on our own to reproduce the problem.

Hopefully, we can catch the problem.

Thanks for the follow up on this.

Jim

[TeroP]

Typically the program will lock up when I hit the stop button while recording an AVI. The recorded AVI file is corrupt and must be disposed of. Occasionally, the lock up will be accompanied by an error window indicating the program has encountered a problem and must close. Sometimes the program will close, but most time it does not close, instead locking up the computer and I have to re-boot.

As most other folks do not seem to have this problem with any regularity, I suspect that my laptop system is at least partly the problem.

The ACER laptop I'm using is a 1.9Ghz system running XP. The laptop has never been on-line and is used soley to run my 4 DMK cameras (one at a time).

Would going to a faster system possibly cure this problem? I have changed out camera cords, investing in high quality USB cords, but the crashes still persist.

I can confirm these findings 100% but I also have to add that this problem happens ONLY with Windows XP installed.

I have Asus UL30A laptop that has had Windows 7 HP with SP1 installed and it never crashed IC capture, however it tend to have some dropped frames so I decided to install Windows XP with SP3 on the laptop. The dropped frames are now fraction of what they used to be (~4 dropped frames for each 2000 frames, used to be ~30-40 with W7 using same settings) but the annoying crashes are there.

The crashes tend to happen:

1) occasionally when starting capture, the IC capture just hangs and it has to be killed from task manager/processes
2) when the recording stops, the IC capture just hangs.

Most of the time I can kill IC capture when 2) happens but sometimes it just refuses to die, so I have to "restart" the machine via start menu/shutdown, so the problem doesn't make my laptop to hardcrash. I don't have any power saving settings enabled so that shouldn't affect this "bug".

[Stefan Geissler]

Hello

1) occasionally when starting capture, the IC capture just hangs and it has to be killed from task manager/processes

Do you have an idea, what may happens due to IC Capture start? Does the same happen, if the camera is not connected?

2) when the recording stops, the IC capture just hangs.

That is bad, because the AVI file header wont be written. This means, the AVI file is incomplete and can not be read. Is this correct?

Did you try the IC Capture version from http://www.theimagingsource.com/en_U.../iccapturetis/ ?

[TeroP]

Hello

Do you have an idea, what may happens due to IC Capture start? Does the same happen, if the camera is not connected?

I meant when starting to capture video (pressing record button).

That is bad, because the AVI file header wont be written. This means, the AVI file is incomplete and can not be read. Is this correct?

Did you try the IC Capture version from http://www.theimagingsource.com/en_U.../iccapturetis/ ?

Yeah, the AVI is incomplete and unusable in this case. I noticed that the crash when finishing recording seems to happen more often when I'm recording a big video with thousands of frames. If I limit the ROI thus making smaller videos, it doesn't seem to crash.

I always try to have the latest version of the driver and IC Capture, so yes, I have the latest version installed. I forgot to mention my camera, which is DBK31.

What I find interesting is the fact that I mentioned earlier, under W7x64/sp1 the ICCapture does not crash, the crashes only happen on XP/sp3.

[Stefan Geissler]

What I find interesting is the fact that I mentioned earlier, under W7x64/sp1 the ICCapture does not crash, the crashes only happen on XP/sp3.

Same to me. However, I used Windows XP SP3 until beginning of March did not had these problems at all. Therefore, it is very hard to narrow down the problem.

[Rando]

Same to me. However, I used Windows XP SP3 until beginning of March did not had these problems at all. Therefore, it is very hard to narrow down the problem.

I am having the same problem. Every so often my AVI's will finish at the time specified, eg: 1min 30sec, and by the time the counter hits 1:30, the program will lock up and not write the file header, rendering the file useless. When IC Capture crashes, it only happens to me when at the end of the specified counter time. I've had this happen within all IC Capture updates. I am running an ACER Laptop with XP Pro, Service Pack 3, 2Gb RAM, AMD Duo Core 64 - 2Ghz processsor.

As metioned by others on this thread, I too have to re-boot the computer by holding down the power button. Cntrl>Alt>Del will NOT shut the machine down.

This has been going on since I bought my DMK21 USB Mono over 3 years ago, but I have tried to live with the problem.

PS: Here is the Windows XP Event Viewer Error: Faulting application ic capture.as.exe, version 2.2.315.1235, faulting module qcap.dll, version 6.5.2600.5512, fault address 0x00022295. Hope this helps.

[asimov]

Yes, the crash quite often happens at the end of a capture. In my case, if I try to end a capture by hitting the STOP button, it quite often forces a reboot but I have a lot better luck if I PAUSE then STOP the capture. It seems to be all about luck, lol.

Like you Rando, I just live with it.

[Rando]

Hello Asimov,

I do hope someone at Imaging Souce (Stefan?) looks at the Windows Event Error I posted. It looks like there is a faulty .dll file we are dealing with. qcap.dll to be exact.

Nice to hear that it just isn't doing it on my machine. By the way, when IC capture does crash, I get the same repetative Windows Event error referring to the qcap.dll file.

[Stefan Geissler]

Hi

The qcap.dll is part of Windows / DirectShow.

However, you may try a newer IC Capture version from http://www.theimagingsource.com/en_U.../iccapturetis/

(It shows "trial" in the download name, but its a full version.)

[TeroP]

However, you may try a newer IC Capture version from http://www.theimagingsource.com/en_U.../iccapturetis/

Would be interesting to test the new ICCapture, but unfortunately my telescope is on warranty service / mirror cleanup and I have no idea when I will get it back. Well, it wouldn't matter at this time anyway, since it's the nordic summer sky and no stars are visible here even during nights in the next two or so months as the sun sets for only 3 hours a night at most...