Clamp-o-tron ports touching but not clamping?

[GungaDin]

For the first time I have a few clampatron docking ports that are misbehaving.  I got them to touch perfectly but they don't like each other!

- In my research here I saw that it's possible that I 'have them in backward' but how is that possible?

- Is it true that the docking ports must be designated as 'control from here' and 'target' in order for them to operate (clamp together)?

[Geonovast]

5 minutes ago, GungaDin said:

For the first time I have a few clampatron docking ports that are misbehaving.  I got them to touch perfectly but they don't like each other!

- In my research here I saw that it's possible that I 'have them in backward' but how is that possible?

- Is it true that the docking ports must be designated as 'control from here' and 'target' in order for them to operate (clamp together)?

It's somewhat easy to get the Sr. docking ports backwards in the editor.

No, they do not need to be set to anything to dock.

They must be the same size, though.  Pics would help.

[HansAcker]

I was just posting about the same. In the case of an inverted docking port, it should also show a "decouple node" option in the action window that would decouple the attached stack.

Two more (but unlikely) sources of docking trouble:

- if the ports have just undocked from each other, they need a few metres distance before they reset to a pre-docking state

- some (modded) parts need to be activated before they'll dock. I bumped a retracted SSPXR telescopic docking port into a clamp-o-tron a few times until I finally got the clue

[paul23]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

It's somewhat easy to get the Sr. docking ports backwards in the editor.

No, they do not need to be set to anything to dock.

They must be the same size, though.  Pics would help.

Another thing that bit me at first is that they need to "touch" without relative angle, so they need to nearly flatly touch each other (like within 1 or 2 degrees). For long and heavy craft the moment of inertia is the most difficult thing and actually aligning them takes me more time, even with docking point alignment indicator.

[XLjedi]

This reminds me!

I have done that so frequently with those big docking ports (installed backwards) that I was planning to literally repaint the skin for that mesh with a big red "X" on the side that is NOT supposed to be facing outwards.

I am loading GIMP now...

 

[DeadJohn]

Are they they same exact port? A few different ports are compatible with each other, but don't make the mistake I've made of sending a refueling ship with the wrong size port attached.

Regular or shielded ports? The shielded ports can be more finicky about connecting.