PixInsight 1.8.6.1448 Released

[Juan Conejero]

I have just uploaded installation packages for a new version of PixInsight: 1.8.6.1448 for Linux, macOS and Windows.

Installation

As all new versions of the PixInsight core application, this one is not available as an automatic update. You have to uninstall the previous version (be it 1.8.6 or an older one) and install the new version manually. Of course, if you have already activated the initial 1.8.6 version on your computer, no additional license activation will be required.

Changes in this Version

Build 1448 is a bugfix release providing the following modifications to the initial 1.8.6.1447 version:

All platforms: When a system temporary folder has been selected for storage of swap image files (such as /tmp on Linux or %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp on Windows), a warning message is shown upon application startup. This message is to inform the user about the risk of potential deletion of active image swap files as a result of system policies for automatic removal of temporary files. This warning message can be dismissed and disabled by means of a don't show again check box.

macOs: Instead of a system temporary folder, a system cache folder is selected by default for storage of image swap files. Files stored in system cache folders are never deleted automatically, which prevents issues such as those reported in this forum thread. This change was intended to be included in the initial 1.8.6 release, but I forgot to copy the corresponding modifications to the code selected for the final builds.

macOS: This version opts out of Mojave's dark mode, which we still don't support correctly, by means of a special keyword included in the Info.plist configuration file. If you are interested in the details, see the corresponding Apple's documentation. This change should fix the issues reported by some users with the dark mode enabled in their macOS 10.14 installations.

macOS: The Ephemerides script was failing with a weird 'out of memory' error when calculation of topocentric coordinates was selected. This has been fixed.

Windows: I have included a required DLL file that was missing in the initial 1.8.6 release: opengl32sw.dll. Although this file should not be used under normal working conditions, it may be necessary in cases where the OpenGL implementation provided by the Windows desktop is defective or nonfunctional. Unfortunately, this happens with relative frequency on Windows 7, especially on poorly maintained machines, and even on Windows 10 as a result of wrong video drivers.

I hope you enjoy this version. Thank you for your patience and support, and please let me know if you encounter further problems.

[filicz]

Hello I did the update today to 1.8.6)downloaded yesterday it ran without troubles, then I uninstalled it and ran the new update 1.8.6.1448 Now, Pixinsight does not run it shows this error: Fatal Error: Unable to create application instance: QSharedMemoryPrivate::initKey: unable to set key on lock
 have Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS

[Juan Conejero]

I have just tested build 1448 on Ubuntu 18.04.1-desktop and Fedora 29 workstation. It works perfectly.

There is something wrong in your system configuration. I haven never seen the problem you are describing on Linux, but it must be related to interprocess communication (IPC) settings.

[Giorgio]

Hi Juan,
I want to thank you for this big Christmas present.
After some problems with the reactivation mails, Windows 7 the installation worked fine. 
It is not much, but I will make a toast to your well deserved rest.
Thank you
Giorgio.

[filicz]

I have just tested build 1448 on Ubuntu 18.04.1-desktop and Fedora 29 workstation. It works perfectly.

There is something wrong in your system configuration. I haven never seen the problem you are describing on Linux, but it must be related to interprocess communication (IPC) settings.

Thanks you Juan, a reboot did it, now Pixinsight is running in my linux box.

[fkloer]

HO HO HO! Thank you Juan. No issues, no problems. Nice gift

[ewkiss]

I have just tested build 1448 on Ubuntu 18.04.1-desktop and Fedora 29 workstation. It works perfectly.

There is something wrong in your system configuration. I haven never seen the problem you are describing on Linux, but it must be related to interprocess communication (IPC) settings.

Thanks you Juan, a reboot did it, now Pixinsight is running in my linux box.

The same error happened to me, and a reboot also fixed it. However, I have another (minor) issue with the interface (on a stock XUbuntu 18.04). It happened also with build 1447, but not on 1.8.5. Here is how to reproduce it.

1. Start PixInsight, open any image and any process. Do not execute it.
2. Click on the top bar of the process window to get it into focus.
3. Now click on the top bar of the image window. It does not get the focus. This is shown by the fact that the mouse-over text does not appear, for example, on the undo/redo buttons. Also, if I shade the image window, then the resulting icon cannot be moved (relocated) on the desktop. The image in inshaded form can be moved around.
4. Minimizing or maximizing the image window, and then bringing it back to normal does give it the focus, and then everything is back to normal, until I again bring a process window into focus. In minimized form, the image icon can be moved around the desktop.

It is of course possible that this is caused by a problem in my setup, but as I said, it did not occur in 1.8.5.

Otherwise everything is fine, and thanks Juan for your great work. This is my first post here, sorry if it is inappropriate in some way.

[ewkiss]

Also, when cloning the image, the following message appeared in red on the process console:

Reading 1 image(s):
/home/ewkiss/M8/M_8WLin_AH_TVGD_HDRMT_Blend_GHDRC_LHE2_DSE.xisf
Loading image: w=4602 h=2897 n=3 RGB Float32
ICC profile extracted: 'sRGB IEC61966-2.1', 3024 bytes.
*** PCL Unix Signal Handler: Critical signal caught (11): Segmentation violation
PixInsight 01.08.06.1448 - Critical Signal Backtrace
Received signal 11 (SIGSEGV)
Module: /opt/PixInsight/bin/PixInsight() [0x151997d]
================================================================================
 20: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0(+0x12890) [0x7fb3b9e6b890]
 19: QWidget::raise()(+0x19 [0x7fb3b0614fe9])
 18: /opt/PixInsight/bin/PixInsight() [0x1289ef5]
 17: /opt/PixInsight/bin/lib/libQt5Core.so.5(+0x2d09f7) [0x7fb3af8ef9f7]
 16: QObject::event(QEvent*)(+0x7b [0x7fb3af8e3d7b])
 15: QApplicationPrivate::notify_helper(QObject*, QEvent*)(+0x9c [0x7fb3b05e227c])
 14: QApplication::notify(QObject*, QEvent*)(+0x2c0 [0x7fb3b05e92f0])
 13: /opt/PixInsight/bin/PixInsight() [0x5e899f]
 12: QCoreApplication::notifyInternal2(QObject*, QEvent*)(+0x118 [0x7fb3af8b4fb8])
 11: QTimerInfoList::activateTimers()(+0x3d9 [0x7fb3af90dec9])
 10: /opt/PixInsight/bin/lib/libQt5Core.so.5(+0x2ef5e1) [0x7fb3af90e5e1]
  9: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0(g_main_context_dispatch+0x2e7) [0x7fb3ba0c4387](+0x2e7 [0x7fb3ba0c4387])
  8: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0(+0x4c5c0) [0x7fb3ba0c45c0]
  7: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0(g_main_context_iteration+0x2c) [0x7fb3ba0c464c](+0x2c [0x7fb3ba0c464c])
  6: QEventDispatcherGlib::processEvents(QFlags)(+0x5f [0x7fb3af90e94f])
  5: QEventLoop::exec(QFlags)(+0x12a [0x7fb3af8b38aa])
  4: QCoreApplication::exec()(+0x80 [0x7fb3af8bc380])
  3: /opt/PixInsight/bin/PixInsight() [0x4664ef]
  2: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe7) [0x7fb3ae184b97](+0xe7 [0x7fb3ae184b97])
  1: /opt/PixInsight/bin/PixInsight() [0x492ad0]
================================================================================

Emil

[Juan Conejero]

Also, when cloning the image, the following message appeared in red on the process console:

Yes, this is a known small issue in the Linux and macOS versions of PixInsight 1.8.6. It happens rarely, and is completely harmless; you can simply ignore these critical exceptions.

This is a segfault that originates in rare occasions within Qt code when one brings a workspace window to front with a mouse click. The segfault has no further consequences and hence is harmless, as I've said. The fact that we have it perfectly under control demonstrates how well the new critical signal management system works.

Anyway, I forgot to include this known issue in the official announcement; I'll add it. And of course, I'll have to find a way to avoid it, since a backtrace in red doesn't look very nice on the console

[Juan Conejero]

1. Start PixInsight, open any image and any process. Do not execute it.
2. Click on the top bar of the process window to get it into focus.
3. Now click on the top bar of the image window. It does not get the focus. This is shown by the fact that the mouse-over text does not appear, for example, on the undo/redo buttons. Also, if I shade the image window, then the resulting icon cannot be moved (relocated) on the desktop. The image in inshaded form can be moved around.

The problem here is Xfce, which is the default desktop manager in XUbuntu. We don't support Xfce officially because it has several issues with our workspace.

Officially, we only support KDE (both KDE Plasma and 4.8.10 or later) and GNOME 3 (version 3.30 or later recommended). Other desktop managers on Linux may cause problems with our current workspace implementation in PixInsight 1.8.6.

[ewkiss]

Thanks, Juan. Everything works fine with Gnome 3.28.2.

Emil

[wannaberocker]

Everything is working great here! Thanks for this magnificent software. One thing though.....I DO wish that SubFrameSelector ( process version ) would save my approval and weighting expressions like it used to. That would be awesome. Thanks!