2026-10-09 APP 2.0.0-beta48 has been released !
This is mainly a bug fix release for the reported bugs in beta47. In addition it has a significant User Interface performance improvement noticable when you need to process 1000s of images in APP.
2026-10-03 APP 2.0.0-beta47 has been released !
This is a very big release... many code optimizations/rewrites, many parts of APP are much faster and more precise, especially star analysis and registration are much faster ! Big mosaics will go much faster 🙂
And we introduce a new preview filter, which includes the new Adaptive Deep Sky Stretch and a General Levels Stretch, this has been long over due. The old preview filter (the panel on the right side to stretch and preview your data) has not been updated for a couple of years and it is a critical part of any APP session.
Adaptive Deep Sky Stretch or ADSS is a much more intuitive stretch algorithm. It is also color preserving (which is a great new addition in itself ! ) which means that the highlights are no longer bleached, color is maintained from the linear data while stretching. You can simply stretch your data using the sky background level and signal width sliders which work much easier and more intuitive. You no longer need to fiddle with the old complicated sliders with zoom buttons. All the zoom buttons for the sliders are made redundant. And you can enter slider values in the slider value fields yourself. I will make a youtube video in the coming days to explain and fully introduce ADSS. Once the video is ready, it will be highlighted on the forum.
RGB Combine upgrade !. The RGB Combine Tool has been rewritten mostly. The tool is faster and easier to use and most importantly, the Luminance slider to inject a luminance channel or channels into the RGB composite is now working correctly. It no longer bleaches the RGB colors. Combined with the new ADSS preview, you will get much better and easier great composites with great color! I will also explain this in a new youtube video.
@vincent-mod nope - I ran a full scan this morning to be sure there was nothing wrong with the machine (its only 15 months old but things can go wrong I know). I see no strange behaviour with any other apps. I'll keep digging but right now I only have a data point of one which is the behaviour of the beta. Are there any logs it generates that might point to clues?
You can try to start APP via a terminal, but I don't think that will reveal much more. It starts to sound like a system issue to be honest, something with the rights are getting mixed up or something. Did you upgrade from 10 to 11 and I guess you're starting app as user cswin?
I upgraded from Win10 to Win11 around 6-7 months ago. I'm starting it as user cswin. The strange thing is sometimes if you leave it for 10 mins the Open file dialogue can open and it may allow browsing to a location and loading files or it may not. I suppose if it was a permission issue it would be binary. Either way its the only programme showing this behaviour. I did notice on the original install it installed over an existing APP installation leaving a hybrid folder. So maybe that messed things up. However I removed all my installs of APP - manually running the uninstall routine from the respective folders as only one instance of APP showed up in the Programs list depending on which had been installed last - and then reinstalled. I did find that the uninstall didn't remove registry settings. Not sure what else it may have left behind that may be confusing things. The current production version of APP is working fine though.
Thanks for the further report. I'll share this with Mabula and we may have to investigate further.
@vincent-mod I checked the Windows Error Reports and there are a series of Critical reports that state the javaw.exe program hung - not sure if it helps:
The program javaw.exe version 17.0.1.0 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Security and Maintenance control panel.
Process ID: 1a9c
Start Time: 01d86908247ba55e
Termination Time: 4294967295
Application Path: C:\Users\cswin\AppData\Local\AstroPixelProcessor2\jre\bin\javaw.exe
Report Id: 72f2886c-80a2-43ce-bc5e-4509b993ed48
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
Hang type: Top level window is idle
One other thing, Mabula noticed you installed in a folder called AstroPixelProcessor2, is the older version installed in AstroPixelProcessor? Could that, by whatever reason, be the problem?
@vincent-mod hi Vincent - no I've tried completely removing the older version and only installing the beta so there was only one astropixelprocessor directory. No luck. I've also updated my nvidia graphics drivers as I read that could cause issues with javaw.exe. Since I did the latter I have managed to add a dataset and process it using my account rather than as admin. However clicking on buttons that open file dialogue boxes ranged from instantaneous to 10 mins to respond. So it is working but for some reason it is incredibly slow. This only pertains to anything to do with adding lights, flats etc or setting the working directory. Once data is loaded everything works fine. Its just the hour it took me waiting for the app to respond that was the problem while loading data.
So strange. It seems like it's a very local issue, let me send you a pm for an idea.
Seems solved because of a network related issue.
