Starnet ++ with New Mac M1pro Chip, not working

Starnet ++ with New Mac M1pro Chip, not working

Aloha,

I am having a really hard time installing the Starnet Module. all the files are in the right position, but when i launch PI it doesnt recognize it. after that i go to the manual Module installation and it wont recognize it. When i first installed it, my mac blocked the file a couple of times, but i went to the security settings and granted access to the file, but it is now as if it wasnt there. i tried taking the files out of the quarantine file that the MacOs creates, but no luck.

is there any way i can work around this so i can install Starnet?

Apreciate all the help

Mahalo
 
first of all, are you talking about StarNetV2? the tensorflow libraries that ship with PI are incompatible with the M1, but if you delete all of those and replace them with the tensorflow libraries from the StarNetV2 package, it will work on an M1. but you have to get rid of all the old starnet stuff for sure.

if this is what you have done, then try this:

go to /Applications/PixInsight/bin and do ls -lt *tensor* *StarNet* and see if you see any "@" signs in the file permissions.

if so do xattr -c *tensor* *StarNet* and then try searching for the module again.

rob
 
first of all, are you talking about StarNetV2? the tensorflow libraries that ship with PI are incompatible with the M1, but if you delete all of those and replace them with the tensorflow libraries from the StarNetV2 package, it will work on an M1. but you have to get rid of all the old starnet stuff for sure.

if this is what you have done, then try this:

go to /Applications/PixInsight/bin and do ls -lt *tensor* *StarNet* and see if you see any "@" signs in the file permissions.

if so do xattr -c *tensor* *StarNet* and then try searching for the module again.

rob

Aloha,

thank you for your response. It is version 2. I did replace the tensor files. (Im running the free trial of pixinsight, planing to buy it if i can get the starnet to work, dont know if that matters). I did remove the @ from the files and still PI wont recognize it. dont really know what else to do.

Thank you for any help you can give me.
 

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if you are really brave and comfortable with editing text files, you can force-add the starnet module to the pixinsight preferences file. then PI will try to load it and throw up an error message which can aid in further debugging. let me know if you are interested and i can describe what to do.
 
if you are really brave and comfortable with editing text files, you can force-add the starnet module to the pixinsight preferences file. then PI will try to load it and throw up an error message which can aid in further debugging. let me know if you are interested and i can describe what to do.


I Am Brave! haha if you can guide me, i can do it!

Thanks
 
ok so you need to find the pixinsight preferences file. on the mac this is in: ~/Library/PixInsight/PixInsight.plist

~ in unix shell-speak means your home directory, which is something like /Users/dpariasdiaz/ (or whatever your mac account short name is.)

first, quit pixinsight
second, make a backup copy of the plist file and keep it somewhere safe.

now,

searching from the end of the file, look for a string like 000.Modules. you're going to add the starnet module beneath the last line. it may or may not look like this line (i don't know what it will be in a clean installation of PixInsight.

<key>000.Modules.00000053</key>
<string>@@pxi_bin_dir/NoiseGeneration-pxm.dylib</string>

at any rate, find the last module and note the module number (in the above it is 00000053).

then right below those lines, add:

<key>000.Modules.00000054</key>
<string>@@pxi_bin_dir/StarNet2-pxm.dylib</string>

in my case i am showing 54 because that is one more than 53. yours may vary based on the module number of the last module in your file. whatever that is, just add one to it (so here, 53->54.)

then save the file and start pixinsight. it should then try to load the starnet module and will probably give some kind of error both on the console and in a dialog box. it might crash when you dismiss the dialog. either way, PI will probably remove the module from the preferences file, so if you need to do it again, you need to re-edit the preferences file.

you can copy the error from the dialog box and paste it here and that should help us figure out what is wrong.

rob
 
I've been having the same problem, and tried out what you recommened
ok so you need to find the pixinsight preferences file. on the mac this is in: ~/Library/PixInsight/PixInsight.plist

~ in unix shell-speak means your home directory, which is something like /Users/dpariasdiaz/ (or whatever your mac account short name is.)

first, quit pixinsight
second, make a backup copy of the plist file and keep it somewhere safe.

now,

searching from the end of the file, look for a string like 000.Modules. you're going to add the starnet module beneath the last line. it may or may not look like this line (i don't know what it will be in a clean installation of PixInsight.

<key>000.Modules.00000053</key>
<string>@@pxi_bin_dir/NoiseGeneration-pxm.dylib</string>

at any rate, find the last module and note the module number (in the above it is 00000053).

then right below those lines, add:

<key>000.Modules.00000054</key>
<string>@@pxi_bin_dir/StarNet2-pxm.dylib</string>

in my case i am showing 54 because that is one more than 53. yours may vary based on the module number of the last module in your file. whatever that is, just add one to it (so here, 53->54.)

then save the file and start pixinsight. it should then try to load the starnet module and will probably give some kind of error both on the console and in a dialog box. it might crash when you dismiss the dialog. either way, PI will probably remove the module from the preferences file, so if you need to do it again, you need to re-edit the preferences file.

you can copy the error from the dialog box and paste it here and that should help us figure out what is wrong.

rob

I have been having the same issue and tried out what you recommended. here is the error message that I got.. see attached file.
Screen Shot 2022-02-27 at 18.06.40.png
 
ok, this is the same thing i saw on my M1 mac, and so i ended up putting my libtensorflow* files into /Applications/PixInsight/PixInsight.app/Contents/Frameworks/ and then everything was happy. in truth the dynamic loader should be looking in /Applications/PixInsight/bin for the tensorflow libraries but as you can see it did not look there. i don't know why that is, but it might be because the Starnet2-pxm.dylib is not asking the loader to look there.

rob
 
Oh My god dude! that worked like a charm! thank you so much! the starnet module was found when i went to processes/modules/install modules. Again, thank you so much!
 
I took a slightly different approach:

This is what I did to get Starnet on a MBP M1 with Mac OS Monterey and get EZ Processing suite to work as well. A little to mess around with security permissions in Monterey but I got it working:

Get StarnetV2:
https://remoteastrop...net-v2-released
-> StarNetv2PI_MacOS.zip

Move the following files from /Applications/PixInsight/bin into a backup location (in case) :
libtensorflow.2.6.0.dylib
libtensorflow.2.6.0.dylib alias 2
libtensorflow_framework.2.6.0.dylib alias
libtensorflow.2.6.0.dylib alias
libtensorflow_framework.2.6.0.dylib
libtensorflow_framework.2.6.0.dylib alias 2


Copy the following files from StarNetv2PI_MacOS into `/Applications/PixInsight/bin`
StarNetv2PI_MacOS/libtensorflow.2.dylib
StarNetv2PI_MacOS/libtensorflow_framework.2.dylib
StarNet2-pxm.dylib




Launch PixInsight, Install the module:
Go to : Process/Modules/Install Modules search for uninstalled modules and install Starnet.

The installer will complain that files are not signed -
DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISKS - you need to make sure you got these files from a the legit Starnet site - if you install a lib that has been tampered with, you might open your system to some security breach.

When the warning show, on you Mac, go to:
System Preferences / Security & Privacy / Allow Apps downloaded from
-> Add the file
In Pixinsight, when it's installing `StarNet2-pxm` select open.

At this point, you should have Starnet2 process in Pixinsight.

To work with EZ Processing Suite:
Open with a text/code editor: /Applications/PixInsight/src/scripts/EZ_Common.js

Find the getStarNet() function in the code and replace StarNet with StarNet2:

```
function getStarNet() {
try {
return new StarNet2;
} catch (e) {
return null;
}
}
```



Copy the following file from StarNetv2PI_MacOS
/lib/StarNet2_weights.pb
into
/Applications/PixInsight/lib

At this point, everything works for me.

Starnet2, EZDenoise, ...
 
yes i don't know why putting everything in bin/ works for some people and doesn't for others. clearly here dyld was complaining that it couldn't find the libraries and it didn't mention that it had looked in bin/

so for some reason your method does not work for everyone. it might have something to do with having StarnetV1 installed on an M1 mac, but i'm not sure about that.
 
Rob, buddy, you made my day! I was given this beautiful M1 Pro by my school but it was killing me not to have Starnet. I have StarX and that's fine, but it doesn't integrate with EZ Decon and all that. You're the man, this worked great!
 
ok so you need to find the pixinsight preferences file. on the mac this is in: ~/Library/PixInsight/PixInsight.plist

~ in unix shell-speak means your home directory, which is something like /Users/dpariasdiaz/ (or whatever your mac account short name is.)

first, quit pixinsight
second, make a backup copy of the plist file and keep it somewhere safe.

now,

searching from the end of the file, look for a string like 000.Modules. you're going to add the starnet module beneath the last line. it may or may not look like this line (i don't know what it will be in a clean installation of PixInsight.

<key>000.Modules.00000053</key>
<string>@@pxi_bin_dir/NoiseGeneration-pxm.dylib</string>

at any rate, find the last module and note the module number (in the above it is 00000053).

then right below those lines, add:

<key>000.Modules.00000054</key>
<string>@@pxi_bin_dir/StarNet2-pxm.dylib</string>

in my case i am showing 54 because that is one more than 53. yours may vary based on the module number of the last module in your file. whatever that is, just add one to it (so here, 53->54.)

then save the file and start pixinsight. it should then try to load the starnet module and will probably give some kind of error both on the console and in a dialog box. it might crash when you dismiss the dialog. either way, PI will probably remove the module from the preferences file, so if you need to do it again, you need to re-edit the preferences file.

you can copy the error from the dialog box and paste it here and that should help us figure out what is wrong.

rob
Hello, I'm trying to follow your instructions, and when I do a search for "PixInsight.plist" I do not find any file. I looked in /Users/wglogowski/ (my name) and I don't find any Pixinsight folder. I tried the method using the Module and granted access to the file with security settings but StarNet does not show up in my processes.
 
/Users/wglogowski/Library/PixInsight/PixInsight.plist

you might need to use Terminal.app to find this directory because i think the finder hides ~/Library. there might be a finder preference to show hidden folders but i don't know if it works on the Library folder.

for the other method, after you grant access, you need to try to add the module again. since it was prevented from loading, PI did not add the module name to its preferences file.

rob
 
/Users/wglogowski/Library/PixInsight/PixInsight.plist

you might need to use Terminal.app to find this directory because i think the finder hides ~/Library. there might be a finder preference to show hidden folders but i don't know if it works on the Library folder.

for the other method, after you grant access, you need to try to add the module again. since it was prevented from loading, PI did not add the module name to its preferences file.

rob
Thank you, Rob, I did find another way if you go to the finder and type ~Library then hold down the Shift, Command and the period key (.) it will show all the hidden folders. I was able to find the PixInsight.plist this way.
 
Both Pixinsight and Starnet are commercial software. I had to pay for both - and that was really quite a bit of money for me. Nevertheless, as with unfinished free software, I'm supposed to sit down and play around with the editor so that everything works together as it should. That annoys me, because if I pay for it, I expect the modules to be integrated without any problems.

And after an update of Pixinsight these problems start all over again, what's the point? This really gets on my nerves.
 
Yes you are right. I must have confused it with StarXterminator. But then I don't understand why such an immature module is implemented in commercial software.
 
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