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PINE crashes during multi-key-frame-timelapse in slave mode.  

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Kilian
(@kilian)
New Member
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 4
22/03/2020 7:47 pm  

Hi all,
during today's testing session of my 3-axis BFM bundle (which I am very happy with, so far, by the way ?) I came across a potential bug in PINE.

I noticed, that when shooting a shoot-move-shoot timelapse sequence with 3 or more key-frames in slave mode, PINE stops moving to the next interval, once the sequence reached the frame just before the second key frame i.e. externally released camera keeps shooting but the motion control freezes entirely. If the PINE-App is connected to the controller at my external device during this procedure, the App crashes, i.e. exits/shuts itself down without user interaction and home-screen is visible.

Here is the setup that I was testing with:

  • External devices: iPhone (8) and iPad Air (2), both running on latest iOS
  • Motors: BFM 14:1 + 2x NT Single Axis
  • PINE APP: iOS v3.0.3
  • Controller: PINE R, firmware v3.0
  • Camera: Sony a7III; for slave mode: wired camera to AUX-inupt of PINE via hot shoe adapter and synch-cable
  • Camera release: QDSLRDashboard-App, or camera's internal intervalometer (interval set to 5s).
  • Power bank: XT-20000QC2, input voltage: 18-19V

This is the most simple test scenario that I have observed the error with:

  • 1 motor
  • Key frame 1: position 0
  • Key frame 2: position 100 (5 frames)
  • Key frame 3: position 0 (10 frames)
  • The crash occurs after frame 4 has been captured by the camera

These are some further observations that I have made:

  • The error occurs, whether the external devices are connected or not.
  • The amount of involved motors does not matter.
  • The error occurs, regardless which type of camera release I used.
  • The error does NOT occur in regular mode (even for the exact same sequence), i.e. PINE controls camera release
  • When set to slave mode, PINE performs the movement-test of the multi-key-frame sequence without errors.
  • After the error occurred, reconnecting to PINE is possible without the necessity of re-starting the controller. The timelapse module of the app does not state that there is an active sequence and asks whether to re-load the key-frames, or start from scratch. The old key frames are loaded correctly.

My preliminary conclusion is, that the error is independent of the used camera, how the camera is released, or the motor type and therofre caused by a bug in the PINE controller, only. Can someone reproduce the error with a different setup? This would solidify the mentioned theory.

To help out the BFM development team to find a cause/solution, I have attached the bug analysis report that my iPhone generated for the PINE-App during one of my tests. Just let me know if you need anything else!

I am really curios about the cause of the error, and would be happy about a solution.

Best regards and stay healthy,
Kilian


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Kilian
(@kilian)
New Member
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 4
22/03/2020 7:50 pm  

Edit: changed the file tyoe from .ips to .txt


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Patrick
(@patrick)
Black Forest Motion Moderator
Joined: 6 years ago
Posts: 111
23/03/2020 4:38 am  

Hi Kilian,

Thank you for bringing this up and providing the detailed description, which helped me reproduce this. It's a bug.

I'm working on a solution and hope to have this fixed in a new app release shortly.

All the best,
Patrick


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Kilian
(@kilian)
New Member
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 4
24/03/2020 9:06 pm  

Hi Patrick,

thank you for your quick response.

Great to hear that an update is coming soon and shall fix the bug.

Best regards,

Kilian


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Patrick
(@patrick)
Black Forest Motion Moderator
Joined: 6 years ago
Posts: 111
06/04/2020 7:24 am  

Hi Kilian,

Just a short update on this topic. This week, we will be releasing a new update for the iOS app. This will be a minor update with mostly visual UI updates and some bug fixes. The bug you were reporting that the app crashes in slave mode with more than 2 keyframes will be fixed in this update. However, for the slave mode to completely run with more than 2 keyframes, an update of the PINE Firmware will also be needed. I usually let some changes accumulate for the PINE Firmware before I make a new public release. So far, I have only fixed the bug you reported and waited with the release of a new firmware until there are more changes to do. Therefore the delay...

Please let me know if this is a more urgent matter and you need this to work soon. Then I can prepare an intermediate firmware release that will just fix the slave mode.

All the best,
Patrick


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Kilian
(@kilian)
New Member
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 4
19/04/2020 9:34 pm  

Hi Patrick,

please excuse my delay in response!

It is very good to hear that you were able to fix the bug already. Concerning your question, I am not in a big hurry, so an immediate update of the firmware to fix the bug would only be „nice to have“, though not urgently required.

Can you provide a rough estimate when the next firmware update will be available (i.e weeks months,...)? How long were the previous temporal distances between the firmware updates?

Best regards,

Kilian


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Patrick
(@patrick)
Black Forest Motion Moderator
Joined: 6 years ago
Posts: 111
20/04/2020 9:49 am  

Hi Kilian,

I'm currently working on the next firmware update and adding some nice new features to the time-lapse mode. I hope to have it done by next week. Then the slave mode will also be fixed.

You can check our update history on our website at  https://blackforestmotion.com/update-history/

There we list when we release new firmware updates for PINE along with what changed.
New firmware updates usually happen between every 1 to 3 months depending on how many feature request we have. 
The updates for Android or iOS app happen more frequently and we usually don't announce them unless there are some major new features added.

All the best,
Patrick


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