KStars v3.5.0 Release Date?

Hy Murveit murveit at gmail.com
Sat Nov 21 02:17:41 GMT 2020 

*> git logcommit bed10ad934e8b60c36da5a3bfeaa8c8e8284e384 (HEAD -> master,
upstream/master)Author: Jasem Mutlaq <mutlaqja at ikarustech.com
<mutlaqja at ikarustech.com>>Date:   Sat Nov 21 02:49:47 2020 +0300    Marking
stable release for 3.5.0*


Woohoo! Congratulations!!

On Sat, Nov 14, 2020 at 9:04 PM Hy Murveit <murveit at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jasem,
>
> Build is broken.
>
> To get things to compile I needed to comment out:
>    lines 46, 48 859, 864 of align.h
> These are related to your recent commits.
>
> Hy
>
> PS IMHO it's better to remove all those lines you commented out in the
> recent commits.
> You can always retrieve them in git.
>
> On Sat, Nov 14, 2020 at 7:46 PM Robert Lancaster <rlancaste at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Or did you say the solve succeeded with whatever profile you used?  Sorry
>> this email thread is missing part of the message and I may have
>> misinterpreted it.  Maybe this image was in response to your message about
>> the parallel solvers not shutting down that I already responded to?
>>
>> On Nov 14, 2020, at 10:43 PM, Robert Lancaster <rlancaste at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Wolfgang,  I tried solving this image with my Small Scale Solving
>> profile and it failed.  I noticed that your stars are fairly small and it
>> was downsampling by 3.    So I tried turning off downsampling entirely and
>> it succeeded in about 3 seconds.  If you are having trouble with failed
>> solves, you can try disabling the auto downsample function and try 1 or 2
>> for the downsample.
>>
>> On Nov 14, 2020, at 6:44 PM, Wolfgang Reissenberger <
>> sterne-jaeger at openfuture.de> wrote:
>>
>> Try this one:
>>
>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QAq19iQjdqe_YJNuNCcOyWHaoyHQGxcE/view?usp=sharing
>>
>>
>> Am 14.11.2020 um 23:57 schrieb Jasem Mutlaq <mutlaqja at ikarustech.com>:
>>
>> Got a link to the image?
>>
>> A user sent me this log:
>>
>> [2020-11-14T02:18:16.415 UTC WARN ][                       default] -
>> QObject::startTimer: Timers can only be used with threads started with
>> QThread
>> [2020-11-14T02:18:16.443 UTC WARN ][                       default] -
>> QtDBus: cannot relay signals from parent
>> Phonon::AbstractAudioOutput(0x4cfbe30 "") unless they are emitted in the
>> object's thread QThread(0xcf9258 ""). Current thread is QThread(0x507d2a8
>> "").
>> [2020-11-14T02:18:16.444 UTC WARN ][                       default] -
>> QtDBus: cannot relay signals from parent QObject(0x4cfbe30 "") unless they
>> are emitted in the object's thread QThread(0xcf9258 ""). Current thread is
>> QThread(0x507d2a8 "").
>> [2020-11-14T02:18:16.485 UTC WARN ][                       default] -
>> QObject::~QObject: Timers cannot be stopped from another thread
>>
>> Anyone seen anything like this? It appears to be related to Phonon
>> playing notification sounds and not an internal error for KStars.
>>
>> --
>> Best Regards,
>> Jasem Mutlaq
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 14, 2020 at 11:02 PM Wolfgang Reissenberger <
>> sterne-jaeger at openfuture.de> wrote:
>>
>>> Robert, all,
>>> I had the issue again when trying to solve a wide field image around
>>> NGC6888, which contains very dense star fields. I am using the 1-Default
>>> profile without any change.
>>>
>>> If I leave the „Parallel Algorithm“ option from the Astrometry
>>> Parameters on „Auto“, Kstars solves the image very fast, but remains on
>>> 100%. It seems that the in parallel running threads were hanging.
>>>
>>> I am using the following versions:
>>> KStars: 57c44d05c3e1f9895d84c7f4f73950975e8eddb7
>>> StellarSolver: 2d7eba6685c1bcd77c0525e88b3d24b2fcd474a9
>>>
>>> Anything I could test right now?
>>>
>>> Wolfgang
>>>
>>> Am 10.11.2020 um 15:50 schrieb Robert Lancaster <rlancaste at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>> Hi Wolfgang,
>>>
>>> So I just want to clarify something you said here, there are a couple of
>>> parallel things and that can be a little confusing, so I just want to make
>>> sure we are talking about the same things.  The cause of the confusion is
>>> the terminology that astrometry.net uses
>>>
>>> 1. Load all Indexes in Memory / Load all indexes in Parallel.  This is
>>> the inParallel option for astrometry.net.   In the options I tried to
>>> call this “Load all Indexes in Memory” to attempt to avoid the confusion
>>> with the Parallel Algorithm.  This has nothing to do with parallelization
>>> in different threads or processors.  It has to do with memory management.
>>> The astrometry.net solver can load the indexes and search them one
>>> after the other, or it can try to load all the indexes at once and then
>>> solve.  The second option is much much faster, but comes with risk.
>>> astrometry.net does NOT check to see if it has enough RAM before it
>>> tries to solve,  They have big warnings in the documentation about using
>>> this option.  If you don’t have enough RAM, it could use all the RAM and
>>> crash.
>>>
>>> I programmed StellarSolver to check the available RAM prior to starting
>>> the solve.  If there is not enough RAM, it is supposed to turn off the
>>> option.  The user can also disable the option entirely, so that there is
>>> never a problem.  But you really do want the option turned on if your
>>> system can handle it.  We had some issues earlier about the RAM
>>> calculation.  I think the “inParallel” option causes the greatest crash
>>> risk.  I would really like it if somebody could look over the code for
>>> determining enough RAM and see if it is good now.  One thought that I have
>>> is that we can make the calculation more conservative and we could change
>>> the option to have 3 choices, Auto, on, or off.  So that if a user is
>>> really brave, or convinced they have enough RAM for sure, they could turn
>>> the option on regardless of the risk, If they are risk averse, they could
>>> turn it off, but most users could just leave it on auto.  What do you think?
>>>
>>> 2. Parallelization Algorithm for solving.   I am assuming this second
>>> option is what you meant in your email.  This one is entirely of my
>>> creation and is what makes StellarSolver stellar.  Modern computers really
>>> have great capacity for computing in parallel and it causes a HUGE
>>> performance boost to use this capability, even on a Pi, since the PI has 4
>>> processors.
>>>
>>> I programmed StellarSolver to have 2 different parallel algorithms, one
>>> that solves simultaneously at multiple “depths” and one that solves
>>> simultaneously at different scales.  If you set it to Auto, it will select
>>> the appropriate one based on whether you specified the scale or position
>>> (or neither).  If the image has both scale AND position, it does NOT solve
>>> in parallel and goes back to solving with a single thread.
>>>
>>> When Jasem wanted to me to de-thread the StellarSolver and make it so
>>> that just the solvers are threads, I had to make a bunch of changes and one
>>> change I forgot was to make the star extraction before parallel solving
>>> asynchronous.  That does mean that when doing a parallel solve, it might
>>> look like things have frozen for a moment during the star extraction before
>>> the threads start up.  I have already fixed this, but it is in the
>>> releaseExperiment branch of StellarSolver, not in Master.  I would like to
>>> get this fix integrated before we release, but I will need to test this
>>> thoroughly first as I mentioned in a previous email.  I am wondering if
>>> this freezing behavior was what caused the “crash” you observed?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Rob
>>>
>>>
>>> On Nov 10, 2020, at 8:03 AM, Wolfgang Reissenberger <
>>> sterne-jaeger at openfuture.de> wrote:
>>>
>>> OK, I did a quick check on my RPi4 with Parallel Algorithm set to „Auto“
>>> - and it works super fast! But since it is daytime, I can only test the
>>> „Load and Slew“ option. So maybe the WCS info in the file gave hints that
>>> are not present for normal capture and slew or sync.
>>>
>>> I need to check it under real conditions, which might be tricky due to
>>> the fog hanging around here…
>>>
>>> Wolfgang
>>>
>>> Am 10.11.2020 um 11:16 schrieb Jasem Mutlaq <mutlaqja at ikarustech.com>:
>>>
>>> Alright, let's look at this:
>>>
>>> 1. Parallel algorithm: This is related to SOLVER, not image
>>> partitioning. It should work fine on Rpi4 and the checks are more reliable
>>> now as Robert worked on that.
>>> 2. WCS Polar Align: Can this be reproduced with simulators?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Best Regards,
>>> Jasem Mutlaq
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 10:48 AM Wolfgang Reissenberger <
>>> sterne-jaeger at openfuture.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>> It wasn’t that bad. The problem was that KStars went to 100% CPU usage
>>>> and died (or I killed it, do not exactly remember). I’ll try to reproduce
>>>> it...
>>>>
>>>> Am 10.11.2020 um 08:45 schrieb Hy Murveit <murveit at gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>> OK, well I believe it was fixed a week ago, so if you can still
>>>> recreate it, you should report it.
>>>> It should be fixed before release if it is still freezing the Pi.
>>>>
>>>> Hy
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Nov 9, 2020 at 11:42 PM Wolfgang Reissenberger <
>>>> sterne-jaeger at openfuture.de> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> OK, I have to check it. The problem occurred only a few days ago and I
>>>>> think I’m always on bleeding edge...
>>>>>
>>>>> Am 10.11.2020 um 08:38 schrieb Hy Murveit <murveit at gmail.com>:
>>>>>
>>>>> Wolfgang: I believe Rob and/or Jasem fixed the issue with parallel
>>>>> algorithm bringing down the RPi4 a while back.
>>>>> I have the solver on auto parallelism and load all indexes in memory,
>>>>> and it seems to work fine (and in parallel).
>>>>> Similarly, for star extraction, Jasem implemented a threaded
>>>>> extraction that also automatically determines how many threads to use and
>>>>> seems fine on the RPi4.
>>>>>
>>>>> Eric: I believe these parallel options are the defaults. Hopefully
>>>>> users won't need to configure things like this.
>>>>> For star detection, I don't believe you can turn it off.
>>>>> For star detection Jasem split the frame before detection (into at
>>>>> most num-threads parts--4 for the RPi4).
>>>>> For align, I'm not sure how Rob divided things.
>>>>>
>>>>> Hy
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Nov 9, 2020 at 11:07 PM Wolfgang Reissenberger <
>>>>> sterne-jaeger at openfuture.de> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>> I think we are close to finishing the release. I personally would opt
>>>>>> to wait for another week and keep an eye stability.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Maybe we should take another look if the default settings in the
>>>>>> StellarSolver profiles work a) for typical camera/scope combinations and b)
>>>>>> for all platforms.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For example with my RPi, I needed to change the Parallel Algorithm to
>>>>>> „None“ because parallelity brought KStars down. Is the default setting
>>>>>> „None“ and I changed it somewhen? With all the new parameters I would
>>>>>> prefer having a robust setup and leave it to the user to optimize speed.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> @Jasem: please take a closer look to MR!122, since it fixed 4(!)
>>>>>> regressions I introduced with my capture counting fix MR!114. Hopefully now
>>>>>> we have at least a proper coverage with automated tests...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Wolfgang
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Am 09.11.2020 um 22:04 schrieb Jasem Mutlaq <mutlaqja at ikarustech.com
>>>>>> >:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hello Folks,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So back to this topic, any major blockers to the KStars 3.5.0 release
>>>>>> now?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1. Remote Solver should be fixed now.
>>>>>> 2. StellarSolver Profiles are more optimized now.
>>>>>> 3. Handbook not updated yet, but we can probably work on this shortly.
>>>>>> 4. Couple of pending MRs to take care of.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> How about Friday the 13th?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Best Regards,
>>>>>> Jasem Mutlaq
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Nov 5, 2020 at 3:41 AM Robert Lancaster <rlancaste at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi Eric,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Ok so then we would be changing the way we do version numbering with
>>>>>>> this, right?
>>>>>>> I believe now we typically add features in each new iteration 3.4.1,
>>>>>>> 3.4.2, etc etc
>>>>>>> and when it is really big like StellarSolver, then we make it a big
>>>>>>> release like 3.5.0
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> With this new paradigm, we wouldn’t put new features into the master
>>>>>>> of the main 3.5 branch
>>>>>>> But instead we would work on a new 3.6 branch, and then bug fixes
>>>>>>> would go into the 3.5 branch
>>>>>>> to make each new minor release, like 3.5.1, 3.5.2 etc.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Do I have this correct?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If this is right, then it would be longer before users see new
>>>>>>> features in the main branch, but the
>>>>>>> tradeoff is that the main branch would have a LOT more stability.  I
>>>>>>> see this as a big positive.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Rob
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> > On Nov 4, 2020, at 5:54 PM, Eric Dejouhanet <
>>>>>>> eric.dejouhanet at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > Hello Hy,
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > Version 3.5.0 is only the beginning of the 3.5.x series, with more
>>>>>>> > bugfixes on each iteration (and possibly, only bugfixes).
>>>>>>> > So I have no problem leaving unresolved issues in 3.5.0.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > For instance, the Focus module now has a slight and unforeseeable
>>>>>>> > delay after the capture completes.
>>>>>>> > The UI reflects the end of the capture only, not the end of the
>>>>>>> detection.
>>>>>>> > This makes the UI Focus test quite difficult to tweak, as running
>>>>>>> an
>>>>>>> > average of the HFR over multiple frames now has an unknown
>>>>>>> duration.
>>>>>>> > Right now, the test is trying to click the capture button too soon
>>>>>>> 2
>>>>>>> > out of 10 attempts.
>>>>>>> > But this won't block 3.5 in my opinion (and now that I understood
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> > problem, I won't work on it immediately).
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > In terms of reporting problems, the official way is stil
>>>>>>> bugs.kde.org,
>>>>>>> > but there's quite a cleanup/followup to do there.
>>>>>>> > I'd say we can use issues in invent.kde.org to discuss planned
>>>>>>> > development around a forum/bugzilla issue or invent proposal (like
>>>>>>> > agile stories).
>>>>>>> > There are milestones associated with several issues (although I
>>>>>>> think
>>>>>>> > they should be reviewed and postponed).
>>>>>>> > And we can certainly write a punchlist: check the board at
>>>>>>> > https://invent.kde.org/education/kstars/-/milestones/3
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > Le mer. 4 nov. 2020 à 22:38, Hy Murveit <murveit at gmail.com> a
>>>>>>> écrit :
>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>> >> Eric,
>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>> >> I would add to your list:
>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>> >> - KStars Handbook (review update sections to reflect 3.5.0) and
>>>>>>> finally (perhaps manually if necessary) put the latest handbook online.
>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>> >> - Review the extraction settings. I spent a bit of time looking
>>>>>>> at the default HFR settings, and based on some experimentation (truth be
>>>>>>> told, with a limited amount of data) adjust things a little differently
>>>>>>> than my first guess (which was basically focus' settings).
>>>>>>> >> Rob: My intuition is that I should adjust the default
>>>>>>> StellarSolver star-extraction settings for Focus and Guide as well in
>>>>>>> stellarsolverprofile.cpp. I don't know whether you've already verified
>>>>>>> them, and want to release them as they are, or whether they are a first
>>>>>>> shot and you'd welcome adjustment?
>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>> >> Also, Eric, I suppose I should be adding these things here:
>>>>>>> https://invent.kde.org/education/kstars/-/issues
>>>>>>> >> Is that right? Sorry about that--ok, after this thread ;) But
>>>>>>> seriously, your email is a good summary, and from that link
>>>>>>> >> it doesn't seem as easy to see which are "must do by 3.5.0" and
>>>>>>> which are "nice to have someday".
>>>>>>> >> A 3.5.0 punchlist would be a nice thing to have.
>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>> >> Hy
>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>> >> On Wed, Nov 4, 2020 at 12:58 PM Eric Dejouhanet <
>>>>>>> eric.dejouhanet at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>> >>> Hello,
>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>> >>> Where do we stand now in terms of bugfixing towards 3.5.0?
>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>> >>> - StellarSolver has all features in, and 1.5 is finally out at
>>>>>>> Jasem's PPA.
>>>>>>> >>> - However Gitlab CI still complains about that lib package (see
>>>>>>> >>> https://invent.kde.org/education/kstars/-/jobs/75941)
>>>>>>> >>> - Unitary tests are being fixed progressively, mount tests are
>>>>>>> down to
>>>>>>> >>> ~20 minutes (yeees!)
>>>>>>> >>> - From my tests, the remote Astrometry INDI driver is not usable
>>>>>>> >>> anymore from Ekos.
>>>>>>> >>> - The issue raised with flat frames is confirmed fixed (at least
>>>>>>> by me).
>>>>>>> >>> - Meridian flip is OK (but I had not enough time to test TWO
>>>>>>> flips in a row).
>>>>>>> >>> - Memory leaks are still being researched in Ekos.
>>>>>>> >>> - There is an issue when duplicating an entry in a scheduler job,
>>>>>>> >>> where the sequence associated is copied from the next job.
>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>> >>> Could we get a 3.6 branch where we will merge development of new
>>>>>>> features?
>>>>>>> >>> And master for bugfixing 3.5.x until we merge 3.6 new features
>>>>>>> in?
>>>>>>> >>> (we'd still have to port bugfixes from master to 3.6)
>>>>>>> >>> I don't think the opposite, master for 3.6 and a separate living
>>>>>>> >>> 3.5.x, is doable in the current configuration (build, ppas,
>>>>>>> MRs...).
>>>>>>> >>>
>>>>>>> >>> --
>>>>>>> >>> -- eric.dejouhanet at gmail.com - https://astronomy.dejouha.net
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > --
>>>>>>> > -- eric.dejouhanet at gmail.com - https://astronomy.dejouha.net
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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