Star Tools closes immediately on file open

[the_traveler]

1st post. Sorry it had to be a potential bug report.

I recently downloaded the latest stable trial version 1.8.527MR2 for Linux. I simply unzipped it into it's "distro" folder then execute StarTools-Linux64-GPU. I'm running Lubuntu Linux, based on Ubuntu 22.10 and have an nVidia GTX 1070 card with the nvidia-driver-535 (proprietary) drivers.

I've got clean images stacked in Siril 1.2.0-rc1. No stretching or other post processing. Just the stacked, calibrated and registered result.fit output.

The problem. When I use the Open control, a file selection panel opens and Star Tools immediately closes. If I open a terminal and execute StarTools-Linux64-GPU the GUI opens and I get the following in the terminal: 1 warning generated

I checked the log and there is nothing indicating what the problem is.

Any help or assistance is appreciated. Cheers.

[Mike in Rancho]

Hi Traveler,

No Linux knowledge here, but hopefully those guys will be in here soon!

Until then, you might scan more down this thread, or do a whole forum search, for possibly similar Linux problems that might have been resolved.

Also, in order to help Ivo and the others out, maybe give a few more specs about your computer, and (I think) type 'clifno' and see what it says?

[admin]

I'm not sure I have come across this issue before...
Does the non-GPU version work as expected?

Please note that Linux users, will require zenity and wmctrl installed on their system. Can you confirm these packages are available on your system?

Thank you,

[decay]

Welcome!

Unfortunately we've seen in the past that these kind of problems are hard to analyse. So we'll probably have to wait for Ivo.
But maybe we can try and clear up a few things until then.

- Does this happen _after_ you have selected your stack file in the file selection panel? So while the file is already loading? If so, have you tried another fits file, to exclude that the file itself is the problem?
- Have you tried executing the the non-GPU version ('StarTools-Linux64')? To check if the GPU support is causing the problem.
- Sometimes (virtual) memory related problems cause crashes:
https://www.startools.org/downloads/tec ... ic-crashes

StarTools runs for me even in a virtual Linux machine (non-GPU version) with low resources. So hopefully this is just a configuration issue.

Best regards, Dietmar.

[decay]

Oh sorry I just saw that Ivo replied while I was typing.

[the_traveler]

Howdy and thanks for the replies.

Does the non-GPU version work as expected?

I get the same problem with the non-GPU execution as well.

Unfortunately we've seen in the past that these kind of problems are hard to analyse.

I totally understand. I've used LINUX for over 25 yrs myself and it seems every release presents an issue of some kind.

Does this happen _after_ you have selected your stack file in the file selection panel? So while the file is already loading? If so, have you tried another fits file, to exclude that the file itself is the problem?

Immediately upon clicking the open button. Star Tools closes at the same time the file chooser window opens. If I click directly on the .fits file, it will open ImageMagick (file preference setting) but Star Tools is already gone. There is no "open" or "cancel" button in the file selection panel. I have several .fits files on disk and they exhibit the same problem.

Sometimes (virtual) memory related problems cause crashes:

I have 40GB of system RAM so I wouldn't think this would be an issue.

Please note that Linux users, will require zenity and wmctrl installed on their system. Can you confirm these packages are available on your system?

Yes. Both are installed.

What does occur to me is that my LINUX install is based on Ubuntu 22.10, not the current stable release. Have another PC with 20.04 on it. I'll try ST there and see if the problem is still evident and post back on it.

This PC specs: i5-8600K 3.64GHz CPU, 40GB RAM, nVidia GTX 1070 8GB card, multiple (3) Samsung 500GB SSD drives.

Thanks again and I hope to contribute to the community at some point. Cheers.

[the_traveler]

Update: I installed ST on my Lubuntu 20.04 PC and it runs fine in that version. I opened several .fits files, some just stacked and others with some stretching/processing and all opened as they should. I'd surmise that this install of 22.10 is the culprit then. Not surprised really. These non-LTS versions tend to have more "issues" until the LT versions are released.

Just curious but have you considered packaging up ST as an appImage, Flatpak or snap? I run a few other applications, Mandlebulber v2, Siril, Meshlab, RawTheraPee, from appImages to get around not having to install a ton of otherwise unnecessary libraries and clutter up my drives.

Cheers and thanks again.