Problems with Ripley 1.8.6

[Mpronko]

I recently installed 1.8.6 and I'm having two problems, one major and one minor.  Let's start with the minor one:

I have two monitors set up on my computer where I run PixInsight full screen in one of them.  Whenever I try to "Add Files" from within a tool such as ImageIntegration or ImageCalibration, the pop-up window initially straddles both monitors.  A second or two later, the window relocates itself into the monitor where the main PixInsight window is displayed.  There doesn't seem to be any performance issue other than it being annoying.  This did not occur in 1.8.5 and my version of Windows 10 has not updated since the last time I ran 1.8.5.  Has anyone seen this issue or have a fix?

The other issue I'm having is far more serious.  I collect images with a Canon DSLR that produces RAW files (*.cr2).  When I try to create master bias or dark frames, I can't seem to integrate more than about 24 frames before PixInsight bogs down.  At 36 frames, it took about 12 minutes versus 2 for the 24 frame set.  48 frames took 27 minutes.  During that period, the computer frequently locked up and wouldn't respond.  At 64 frames, the computer crashed and was unresponsive to input; I hard booted the computer after waiting 2 hours.  Other functions seem to work ok.  I can integrate calibrated files (e.g., calibrated flats or registered lights in *.xisf format).  This leads me to believe it has something to do with processing the RAW format files.  I'm operating with the RAW format preferences set to "Pure Raw" and I also specify "raw cfa" as a format hint (this is probably redundant but it worked for me in 1.8.5).  I tried changing those settings but didn't see any effect on the issue.  One other thing I did was to change the working folder for swap files.  I got a message the first time I ran 1.8.6 that there might be a problem if windows was clearing files out of the default swap file folder so I created a new folder and pointed PixInsight to it.  BTW, I also tried using the default swap file folder with no luck.

Judging from some of the other threads, there was a change in the way RAW files are processed in 1.8.5 (dcraw) versus 1.8.6 (libRAW).  Maybe this is the root cause.  Help would be much appreciated.  I'm not computer savvy enough to go beyond what I've already described.

Thanks,
Mark

[msmythers]

Check this thread. Your problem might be something like this. Worth a look.

https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=13032.msg79456#msg79456



Mike

[Mpronko]

Hey Mike,

Yeah, I saw that thread.  In fact, it's what led me to conclude that processing the RAW files might be at the root of the issue I'm seeing.  However, in the other case there was a work around; i.e., don't debayer raw files.  In my case, bias files and dark files are not pre-processed in the workflows I'm familiar with.  I'm hoping someone else is seeing this problem and can point out the error in my way.  Otherwise, I'll have to revert back to 1.8.5.

Thanks for responding
Mark

[msmythers]

Mark

What I'm thinking is batch convert your files first and give that a try. Doesn't matter what they are being used for just get them into XISF format first.

So the workaround to this problem is simply to use it as it is intended to be used: with calibrated frames in XISF format. If you don't want to input calibrated frames, you can use the BatchFormatConversion script to convert your ARW files to XISF files, then feed the Debayer tool with them.

Mike

[Mpronko]

Thanks Mike, that worked!  I was so focused on the work-around in the referenced post being applicable to the debayering process that i didn't connect the dots.

Thanks again,
Mark