Hi John, thank you for looking into this.
In answer to your questions:
1. 'verbose' was ticked for logging under KStars preferences/advanced. Is there another place where I need to select 'verbose' to get the more detailed info you are looking for? For next time I will also check the 'save focus images' option.
2. The only other software that is running at the same time is MountWizzard4, but that is only for the mount, so unlikely to interfere with the focusing routines. Nevertheless, next time I will shut that software off.
I am using INDI 1.9.7 and Sesto Senso 2 driver v 0.7. Backlash is set to 0. To be honest I never really have experience backlash of any significant amount, and other focusing algorithms have always worked fine. Would you recommend to add a value in the backlash field (e.g. 100 or so) just to exclude that as an issue? I guess for Linear 1 Pass it does not matter if this setting is too high?
3. It is hard for me to comment on this, I don't know what these numbers mean exactly. As mentioned above, I have not set any backlash correction (perhaps I should...). But if there is any, I would guess it is much less than 100. In comparison, for my setup one degree of temperature change is about 70-80 steps focus change, and with no backlash set, running an autofocus routine typically gets me that level of detail repeatedly. But you're raising a good point, it is probably good to do a proper assessment of it.
Your comment on the 32 steps at the start made me look into the logs myself as well, and I noticed something strange:
[2022-10-06T20:48:53.280 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - Starting focus with Detection: "SEP" Algorithm: "Linear 1 Pass" Box size: 112 Subframe: no Autostar: no Full frame: yes [ 10 %, 70 %] Step Size: 200 Threshold: 150 Gaussian Sigma: 1.5 Gaussian Kernel size: 5 Multi row average: 3 Tolerance: 5 Frames: 1 Maximum Travel: 3000 Curve Fit: "Hyperbola" Use Weights: yes R2 Limit: 0
[2022-10-06T20:48:53.283 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Focusing outward by 2.000 steps..."
[2022-10-06T20:48:53.560 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser is moving to position 60845 "
[2022-10-06T20:48:56.857 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Focusing inward by 1.000 steps..."
[2022-10-06T20:48:56.862 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser reached requested position. "
[2022-10-06T20:48:57.116 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser is moving to position 59480 "
[2022-10-06T20:48:58.010 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Capturing image..."
[2022-10-06T20:48:59.557 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser reached requested position. "
[2022-10-06T20:49:00.900 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Image received."
[2022-10-06T20:49:00.903 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Detecting sources..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:01.234 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Detection complete."
[2022-10-06T20:49:01.259 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Focusing outward by 1.365 steps..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:01.288 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser is moving to position 60845 "
[2022-10-06T20:49:03.717 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Focusing inward by 1.000 steps..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:03.726 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser reached requested position. "
[2022-10-06T20:49:03.975 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser is moving to position 59596 "
[2022-10-06T20:49:04.943 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Capturing image..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:06.424 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser reached requested position. "
[2022-10-06T20:49:07.812 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Image received."
[2022-10-06T20:49:07.815 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Detecting sources..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:08.123 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Detection complete."
[2022-10-06T20:49:08.161 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Focusing outward by 1.249 steps..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:08.178 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser is moving to position 60845 "
[2022-10-06T20:49:10.623 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Focusing inward by 1.000 steps..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:10.629 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser reached requested position. "
[2022-10-06T20:49:10.880 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser is moving to position 59677 "
[2022-10-06T20:49:11.847 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Capturing image..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:13.324 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser reached requested position. "
[2022-10-06T20:49:14.870 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Image received."
[2022-10-06T20:49:14.872 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Detecting sources..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:15.156 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Detection complete."
[2022-10-06T20:49:15.207 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Focusing inward by 32 steps..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:15.255 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser is moving to position 59645 "
[2022-10-06T20:49:16.137 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser reached requested position. "
[2022-10-06T20:49:17.354 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Capturing image..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:20.233 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Image received."
[2022-10-06T20:49:20.235 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Detecting sources..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:20.552 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Detection complete."
[2022-10-06T20:49:20.578 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Focusing inward by 200 steps..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:20.648 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser is moving to position 59445 "
[2022-10-06T20:49:21.536 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Sesto Senso 2 : "[INFO] Focuser reached requested position. "
[2022-10-06T20:49:22.672 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Capturing image..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:25.548 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Image received."
[2022-10-06T20:49:25.550 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Detecting sources..."
[2022-10-06T20:49:25.931 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Detection complete."
[2022-10-06T20:49:25.977 CEST INFO ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.focus] - "Focusing inward by 200 steps..."
Are the lines in bold correct? Take for example the first one. The focuser is at 60845, then moves in 1000 steps, and confirms it has reached position. One would assume this is then 59845. But then instead of taking an image, it moves to 59480. It then captures an image, followed by a confirmation that position is reached. So did the focuser move while taking a picture? Why was that move to 59480 triggered? Would it not be more logical to take an image at 59845? I don't know how the algorithm works, so maybe this is just normal, but just thought to point it out.
Thanks again for looking into this, hopefully we can find the source of the error soon. Next time, I will capture the actual images and you can run the off-line analysis.
Best regards,
Willem Jan.