Model 8 - Observed Issues

[W4JEW]

Hello,

I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread to collect everyone's list of open issues with the Model 8 screen.

I'm using the Simplex 2.4 Globe version. I'm fairly certain the options in the mmdvmhost file are set correctly. I've been looking at /var/log/messages with log level 2 enabled and I don't see any errors coming from the NextionDriver.

Thus far, I've seen the following issues:

1. The Device ID is set to the Basic version of the 2.4" Nextion display. I have to switch it to the Enhanced version. I would think that, if there are touch sensitive elements in Model 8, one would always want to ensure they're using an Enhanced display.

2. When switching to the D-Star screen, the values for TX and RX frequencies never populate. They populate correctly on the MMDVM and Dashboard pages. I haven't tried DMR yet and I don't have radios to test the other modes, otherwise I would be willing to test all of them.

3. If I select the button to switch to the dashboard, then select the (i) button to go to the information screen, followed by the (home) button to go back to the MMDVM page, the dynamic values on the MMDVM page do not refresh. Once I transmit or receive to/from someone and allow the display to return back to the MMDVM page, the values are populated correctly.

4. The value for Disk Free % never populates. It always displays 'newtxt'

I will add anything else I find. In the meantime, could someone please confirm/deny they are seeing the same issues (or anything different for that matter)?

Thanks!!!

JeffH

W4JEW

[N3MNT]

I am very happy with the model 8 screen and driver upgrades. The following comments are not meant as complaints, but rather as troubleshooting points.
I believe there is a difference in how/if the buttons operate depending on how you connect to the Pi ( modem or USB/serial). I had an issue with the sleep timer on no activity randomly shutting down the screen and not way to restart it without a reset. I edited the Nextion driver to set the sleep timer to zero which disabled it and no issues since. In the data screen, my free disk space is populated with "??" I am using Model 8 Globe Simplex with enhanced Nextion Driver, enhanced 3.2 display and edited driver to kill sleep timer.

I can confirm that after going to the data screen and returning to the home screen the TX and RX freq do not repopulate. They also do not show up on first transmission. After the return to the home screen after that first transmission, TX and RX freq populate both home and Dstar screen.

[WU0V]

I have a 3.5 Enhanced Nextion and have some display issues with Model 8 Dashboard version. First let me say I really like the Models 7 and 8 screens. Rob did a fabulous job creating them.
BTW, I only run DMR on my hotspot, so the only screens I see are the Dashboard (idle screen), Flag (RX), and Info screens.
Here are my observations:
1. The Disk Free percentage is always “??”, even though more than 75% of my card is free.
2. The call sign, TX and RX fields populate correctly, as do the three CPU-related fields, (this is in answer to your question about what fields populate). I thought the System Message field was not working, but now I see that when I press the Shutdown button it shows a message in red letters while shutting down.
3. The screen goes blank from time to time, on no predictable schedule. It might be an hour or it might be a day or two. I can bring it back to life with a brief touch, and when I do it’s always on the Flag screen. [This leads me to think it was showing that screen when it blanked, and it stuck there. It also makes me wonder if the blanking is connected to a specific call sign, which would explain why there’s no consistency to the timing. No idea why that could be.]
4. After that it usually continues displaying and switching screens correctly. Once or twice, though, when I brought it back to life it didn’t switch back to the idle screen. Instead it displayed the IP address, LH call, date/time, and a few other data fields on the Flag (receiving) screen. As soon as a POCSAG message came through, it displayed that message and then began to function correctly.
5. I’m using the latest hotspot FW, the latest Pi-Star version, and the latest Pi-Star dashboard version. I also have the latest NextionDriver version, installed just 10 days ago. Hotspot is a Jumbospot on a Pi Zero W. Screen is connected via USB.

I’ll be interested in seeing what others have observed.

Lee

[WU0V]

I edited the Nextion driver to set the sleep timer to zero which disabled it and no issues since.

How did you edit the driver? I looked at the file with Nano but it’s written in a machine language, I guess. Nano doesn’t work for that job.

[W4JEW]

The display shutting off is due to a new option that was added to the display driver but wasn’t documented clearly enough that people would pick up on it right away.

You’ll need to go to expert mode and add the attribute and value pair to the mmdvmhost file.

SleepWhenInactive=0




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[WU0V]

If there’s a way to add an attribute from within the Expert editor I haven’t learned it. I went instead to /etc/mmdvmhost and added it where indicated but the change didn’t stick after I rebooted. I went back and added it again while in SuperUser mode and it stuck. It now shows as you illustrated in Expert/MMDVMHost. Thanks for the tip!

[N3MNT]

Here is how to add the needed line to Nextion Display Driver
go on SSH on pi-star expert mode.
> rpi-rw
>cd /etc
>sudo nano mmdvmhost
under NextionDriver section add this lines :
RemoveDim=0 (Might already be there)
SleepWhenInactive=0
save by pressing Ctrl and O
exit by pressing Ctrl and X
restart pi-star and check pi-star expert mmdvmhost page

[W4JEW]

Not a problem! Apologies for assuming you could add the setting using the expert editor. I posted my last response while I was sitting at a traffic light and didn't want to type out the steps for doing it via the command-line!

Thanks to N3MNT for the assist!

[W1FJM]

Is there a way to stop the screen refresh that occurs every few minutes when in an idle state? It's very annoying

[W1FJM]

Is there a way to change the temp to Fahrenheit?