Probe's reaction wheels have a mind of their own?

[mr_trousers]

No idea what's going on here, but my latest probe seems to have its mind made up of where it wants to be pointing and won't take no for an answer.

The probe is equipped with:

• A dish antenna and an omni antenna from Remote Tech (Reflektron KR-7 and Communotron 16)
• SCANSat Radar array
• DMagic's magnetometer boom
• Probodobodyne OKTO probe core
• Small inline reaction wheel
• Two OX-4W 3x2 solar panels
• A Universal Storage core with four fuel tanks strapped to it, plus a couple other fuel tanks total
• 48-75 "Spark" LF Engine
• A handful of batteries

And that's it. Everything was normal for the beginning of the launch, I was headed to Minmus to do an altimetry scan. Once pretty far out there, it started acting strangely. I can't activate SAS, for starters - when I press T, it flashes on for the briefest moment before being shut off again. I can't use the reaction wheels to change the direction of the probe at all. It seems like it's fixed on one point and won't give me control. I've managed to get it to move by right clicking on the probe core and the reaction wheel and messing around with the reaction wheel setting - changing it from "Normal" to "Pilot Only" and one to "SAS Only" seems to allow me to change where it's pointing, but within a few seconds of me moving it, it starts trying to take back control and move it back to where it wants it pointed. I managed to keep it mostly under control by turning the reaction wheel power way down, but then when I activated my engine for my burn, it used the engine's gimbal to try to move it to where it wanted it to be pointed as well, ignoring my input and the fact I was trying to point at a maneuver node. It's like I'm fighting against another pilot in the ship. And even though I can wrest some control away, when I change the settings of the wheel back to "Normal" it immediately snaps back to where it wants to be pointed and I can't move it at all.

Any ideas?

[Serenity]

23 hours ago, mr_trousers said:

Any ideas?

Do you use mechjeb?

[eightiesboi]

Logs. Among other things they tell us what mods you have installed.

In this case, a screenshot might help too.

[mr_trousers]

Not sure which log you wanted, here isModuleManager.log and MMPatch.log. I'm also not sure what I could show you in a screenshot, a video may be useful but I'm not sure how to take one of those, you won't exactly see what's happening as I describe it in the op in a still. But here's the craft, if that helps:

 

Mechjeb is installed, but I don't believe there are any mechjeb parts on the ship, unless probe cores come with it automatically. At the least, you can see in the screenshot that mechjeb autopiloting isn't activated or anything.

[eightiesboi]

Sorry, somehow I missed the notification that you responded. Usually you want to provide your output.log and your ksp.log. There are plenty of resources on the boards to tell you how and where to find them. For me, I'll take your KSP.log as a starting point.

Are you stage-locked intentionally? I see that it appears that you are locked.

I also noted you are NOT playing with comms required for control. Am I correct?

Is this a career save? Yes, mechjeb is enabled on your probe, and yes, it can certainly override your SAS. And if it did, it would have exactly the symptoms you describe; however, other things can also do that. And no, you don't necessarily have to have autopiloting obviously activated; for example, if you have mechjeb installed and you use the gravity turn mod, it will automagically set up a circularization maneuver after launch and maintain your heading towards the appropriate maneuver node without any obvious indication that Mechjeb is what is doing this.

I just noticed you are using remotetech. Are you sure then that you have a signal for probe control?

[mr_trousers]

Sorry for vanishing - I've been out of town a couple weeks. Here are the ksp and output logs. I loaded the game up, loaded the craft in question, messed with the reaction wheels a bit and tried to move it around, tried to turn on SAS, then left the game.

I'm not stage-locked intentionally - not actually sure what that means. Remotetech is on, and I do have a signal. As I said, I can wrest control away from the reaction wheels to some degree by messing with their settings, so it's not as if it's completely unresponsive, it's just fighting me. It is a career save. I don't have any maneuvers set up, so I'm not sure what it would be trying to point towards if I did have mechjeb somehow trying to take control. Let me know if there's any more information you need - this still has me stumped.

[eightiesboi]

6 hours ago, mr_trousers said:

Sorry for vanishing - I've been out of town a couple weeks. Here are the ksp and output logs. I loaded the game up, loaded the craft in question, messed with the reaction wheels a bit and tried to move it around, tried to turn on SAS, then left the game.

I'm not stage-locked intentionally - not actually sure what that means. Remotetech is on, and I do have a signal. As I said, I can wrest control away from the reaction wheels to some degree by messing with their settings, so it's not as if it's completely unresponsive, it's just fighting me. It is a career save. I don't have any maneuvers set up, so I'm not sure what it would be trying to point towards if I did have mechjeb somehow trying to take control. Let me know if there's any more information you need - this still has me stumped.

Based on a perusal of your KSP.log, I noted a few things: You have more than a few outdated or obsolete mods. That probably isn't a problem here, but just saying. 

By stage-locked I meant pressing "Mod+L", which keeps you from accidentally activating your stages. Since you didn't, and since your stage light is purple, I think your problem is that either RemoteTech's FC or Mechjeb have control of your probe. Here's what I think is happening:

A. With RemoteTech, you can set the Flight Computer to lock into a particular heading / orientation after completing a command. The FC will then try to hold the orientation. Now, it's been a while (since 1.2 days at least) since I've used RT, so I may be out of date; but if I am not, you can try disabling RemoteTech and see if you can move. If you can, possible culprit.

B. Likewise, with Mechjeb, you can have the Smart A.S.S. turned on and pointed to a particular orientation. In this case, checking is as simple as opening up the Smart A.S.S. window and switching it to "Off" (if it's not already).

The fact you are pointed towards Anti-Normal also would indicate that either of these could be your culprit.

Hope that helps!

[coyotesfrontier]

I've had a similer issue with probes (and only probes), where they won't respond to the "A" key on my keyboard. Every other key works fine, but not that one for some reason. I don't have the issue with crew-controlled craft, which makes this super weird. Still, it isn't that bad, as I can roll the craft around and use "D" to face the correct direction instead.