indi-allsky Fix: Permanent RAW16 instead of 8-bit with the ZWO ASI678MC – how to prevent camera crashes at night

After several nightly failures of my Allsky camera under indi-allsky, it turned out that my ZWO ASI678MC camera switches to 8-bit at night and the Image Worker crashes. To prevent this, I had to set the recording format manually.

The following entry ensures that the camera remains reliably in RAW16 mode and no longer switches to 8-bit:

{
    "PROPERTIES": {},
    "SWITCHES": {
        "CCD_VIDEO_FORMAT": {
            "on": ["ASI_IMG_RAW16"],
            "off": ["ASI_IMG_RAW8"]
        }
    }
}

Since this adjustment, the system has been stable and there are no more nightly outages.

Own custom-setup.sh as a solution for SSL problems when updating indi-allsky

The official setup.sh from indi-allsky is functionally comprehensive and installs the entire runtime environment including the web server configuration. This behavior is useful for typical installations, but leads to problems if custom Apache settings are used – especially with Let’s-Encrypt certificates, user-defined VirtualHosts or specific redirect rules.

Practical operation showed that setup.sh regenerates the /etc/apache2/sites-available/indi-allsky.conf file each time it is run. As a result:

  • a self-signed SSL certificate is created,
  • individual SSL path and server name settings are lost,
  • Listener conflicts arise (ports 80/443 are used multiple times),
  • the Apache restart fails at the end of the setup process.

*** This post was updated with a new routine on Dezember 12th, 2025.  ***

Keep Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate for subdomain/domain after update of indi-allsky

Letsencrypt LogoAfter updating indi-allsky, it often happens that the local self-signed certificate (e.g. allsky.local) is suddenly used again, although a valid Let’s Encrypt certificate was previously set up. I will explain how to do this elsewhere!

***UPDATE: BETTER SOLUTION: custom-setup.sh***

The cause is almost always that the update routines change or reset the Apache configuration of the system. This article shows how to recognize the problem, fix it properly and configure the setup so that it will survive future updates.

Display weather data on indi-allsky photos via OpenWeather API

Open Weather Logoindi-allsky can retrieve weather data such as temperature, humidity or cloud cover directly from the OpenWeather API and integrate it into the image caption. This requires a valid API key and the coordinates of the location. The setup is done in the web interface under Sensors, where OpenWeather is selected as the source and the API key is entered. In addition, the longitude and latitude of the camera’s location must be set under “Location”.

Aircraft data / ADS-B tracking for my Allsky camera via adsb.fi

Eigenes Logo für adsb.fiI wanted to add additional information to my all-sky images: Aircraft data directly in the image, including callsign, altitude and direction. Since I didn’t want to run my own ADS-B setup, I used the Open Data API from adsb.fi and built a solution that works with indi-allsky.

With the following instructions, you can use adsb.fi to receive up-to-date information on aircraft around the location of your Allsky camera every minute and have it displayed directly on the Allsky photo.