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ASCOM Driver Error or Something Else

Stefan Berg Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy (N.I.N.A. / NINA) The ASCOM Initiative ASCOM Equipment Troubleshooting Help Needed
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Mossyback avatar
Mossyback avatar
I don’t know if this is a TSX problem, a N.I.N.A. problem or something with my MtY. I don’t understand the error message so hopefully someone here can help me out. This message came up when I was connecting my equipment in N.I.N.A.

ASCOM Driver Error. Unable to connect to ASCOM telescope Driver for the Sky. Reason: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

As usual, everything was running smoothly until it wasn’t. What do I have to do to fix this?

BTW, I ran ASCOM diagnostics and everything is fine.

Hank
Reid Smythe avatar
Reid Smythe avatar
Hopefully you've fixed the issue.  Assuming you had everything working before, this looks to me like some kind of error popped up in your configuration.  For some reason, NINA did not (or could not) instantiate the driver object.  A reboot would be the easiest way to try to fix the situation, or you could just close everything out and ensure all ASCOM and NINA processes are killed using task manager.  If the problem keeps popping up, I would consider uninstalling the ASCOM SkyX driver  (if there's a convenient way to do that), using ASCOM Profile Explorer to delete the entry in the Telescopes section, then reinstall the driver.

You could also try doing putting a bandaid on the issue by connecting the driver in device hub, then connecting NINA to device hub (or you can get a similar effect using ASCOM Remote).  If Device Hub fails to connect to the driver, it is likely that your driver will need to be reinstalled.  Taking a look at the NINA logs may provide additional indication of why things failed.
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csummers avatar
csummers avatar
I had a similar weird issue with a zwo camera and the Ascom drivers.  I stumbled across deleting the ascom log files and that fixed it.