Dynamic Talkgroups "None" still receiving

Help with DMR issues
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WY0X
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2019 2:00 am

Dynamic Talkgroups "None" still receiving

Post by WY0X »

Brandmeister network, connect to a Talkgroup with RF command/talkgroup transmission...

Hours later still receiving from the talkgroup (fine)...

Pi-star shows "None" on Dynamic Talkgroups on the web UI.

*** Seems to have started when I added an API Key for pistar control of Brandmeister from web. Unconfirmed, could have been happening before that. ***

Thoughts? Normal? Bug?

Nate

Edit: And it disconnects with the usual Unlinked announcement if the Unlink command is sent over RF.
WY0X
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2019 2:00 am

Re: Dynamic Talkgroups "None" still receiving

Post by WY0X »

Appreciate the thoughts, yeah the number of statics on that hotspot is excessive but they're all usually quiet. It's my home office noisemaker.

I just found it interesting that same hotspot if connected to a dynamic eventually shows it isn't connected to that talkgroup on the web page, while it's sitting there blabbing away with traffic from that specific talkgroup.

Seemed like a display bug, since the underlying DMR code is clearly still handling a live stream, and even passing the talkgroup ID and such to the radio.
WY0X
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2019 2:00 am

Re: Dynamic Talkgroups "None" still receiving

Post by WY0X »

Ah ok,

No idea who Toshen is, but do know the vast majority of bad / outdated docs don't get taken down (as per normal in ham and other evolving open source projects) so never ran across anything that properly explained this change in behavior.

If you have a URL of where he announced it, happy to stash it for future questions for future changes in a bookmark. 99 websites out of 100 describe the old behavior, of course, if this was a change. Always nice to know where the true source is... I do read release notes, usually unless I missed 'em!

Which... is why I asked... (GRIN)... it happens.

Counter-intuitive for sure... nothing showing on the admin pages, hot spot transmitting away, for (what to the admin looks like) unknown reasons... if temporary talkgroups triggered by transmissions simply switch to showing they're not connected anymore but really are.

Understand it's not a bug worthy of necessarily fixing and not worried about it, but it's definitely a UI/UX bug, even if it's the intended back-end behavior to keep streaming audio but not continue a connected status indication to the UI. Haven't dug into the PHP enough to see why it "thinks" nothing is connected, nor will likely have time to, so I understand that struggle.

I'm also assuming things here, I assume you're saying the dynamic talkgroups really don't behave the same as they used to behind the scenes?

Interesting stuff... I'm right in the middle of a telecom planning for a large system cut-over, so I have my own back-end and UI stuff to chase in the commercial world... heh... and since they pay me for those... ;-) ;-) ;-)

If the UI says it's not connected and it's sitting here transmitting in the hobby level stuff, worst-case, I know where the power plug is! hahaha... not a problem! Just reporting it, in case it wasn't a known thing.
WY0X
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2019 2:00 am

Re: Dynamic Talkgroups "None" still receiving

Post by WY0X »


KE7FNS wrote:
Toshen used to be an active member of this forum. He updates his personal documentation pretty frequently whenever he feels the need to do so.

...

Where who announced what? And nothing changed, its the same as its always been.

I was referring to you saying he defined the expected behaviour in some documentation somewhere and was wondering if you had a link.

Most docs I read -- and I'd be happy to read "official docs" if they exist...

Essentially say that a static talk group set at the self help Brandmeister page is "always on" and a non static times out after some period of time.

KE7FNS wrote:
Its NOT a bug. Its doing exactly as it is meant to do. You have static groups listed in in the "Static TG" column. The one you are currently monitoring is IN THAT STATIC LIST, and it is NOT a dynamic talkgroup after 15 minutes.
Hmm ok. I can double check, but that was NOT the behavior in my screenshot. The talk group being actively received was not listed in EITHER box.

But now that I know the expected behaviour, I can see if it's reproducible. Thanks.
KE7FNS wrote:
The UI does not say its "not connected", its showing you that you have static TG's assigned and at least one of them is active.
The conversation being transmitted by my hotspot was not coming from a talkgroup listed as static or temporary in the UI.

To be clearer "not connected" == "didn't exist on the screen at all" in this discussion.
KE7FNS wrote:
If you don't want to monitor a talkgroup anymore all you have to do is properly disconnect by keying TG 4000. The same way it has always been.
Clearly. And I believe I mentioned in the first post that was how I stopped the transmissions. If I forgot, apologies.

There was no lack of control. The issue was a display only issue.

I'll go look at the original post but I suspect it wasn't taken literally as the behavior seen.

Anyway. Enough about that. I'll try to reproduce.

...

Meanwhile it does pose a UI/UX design question in my mind...

If a temporary talk group is going to switch over and move into the static box after 15 minutes anyway, what's gained by even having a box showing the user it's a temporary?

It's being treated like a static until you key TG 4000 and turn it off anyway. If the behaviour is as you've defined.

Just a thought. Seems odd.

Most websites I run into seem to indicate many folks think non-statics time out after 15 minutes of no local keying activity of the talkgroup.

As they say... Always read the documentation written by the source/author, but I haven't found any. I'm stuck with whatever Google finds.

I was under the assumption you were referring to Toshen as a developer and his GitHub or similar official documentation. So was asking for a link.

I believe what you're saying is it was just a post here sometime in the past by an enthusiast.

A quick google search finds a blog about pistar under his name also.

I was thinking he may have been a developer of one of the many modules pistar's PHP front end code is layered on top of.

...

Will see if I can get the node to reproduce the behaviour that doesn't match your description of the expected behavior.

Still, not a big deal. Just odd.

...

Oh... Forgot. Just tying up loose strings you brought up...

Didn't have time to mention it in the previous message as it was a separate tangent from the possible display bug...

You mentioned there's a few hotspots in my self service. Those are not in use and were me seeing how the two digit ending suffixes behave. I assumed self service included a way to delete them when finished with them. Just playing around to understand their behavior from behind a single public address while watching logs and a packet sniffer at the network edge.

I later saw that deleting them requires emailing somebody. Pfft. Not going to waste anybody's time with that noise.

We all have enough to do in support roles -- deleting records that should have a delete button on the web page would just be wasting someone's valuable free time. Ha.

I figured maybe I'll throw together another node to use the orphaned entries someday later anyway... Haven't gotten around to it yet, though.

Will see what I can do to reproduce this state where the node is transmitting a stream that isn't shown on the dashboard at all...

I'm pretty good at finding edge cases in state machines talking to operator displays... Too much wasted time in my youth doing it in a telecom lab... Haha. In this case, the bug isn't losing anybody any money, so it's a nothingburger. Just chasing it down for fun.

Pet the dogs. Hunt a bug. More fun than beating my head against the latest work related call flow design docs. Haha.

Cheers. And thanks.
AF6VN
Posts: 821
Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:15 am

Re: Dynamic Talkgroups

Post by AF6VN »

KE7FNS wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:19 am When you key up any talkgroup it is always dynamic for 15 minutes. If you go into your BM self service page and create static TG entries for example TG 3100, then if you key TG 3100 it will be dynamic for 15 minutes AND it will be listed in the static TG column. After 15 minutes it will not be in the dynamic TG listing anymore. You will still be hearing transmissions from TG 3100 until you key up TG 4000.
Not quite the experience I've had... On a DV-Mega (simplex hotspot).

While dynamic groups time out after 15 minutes... The LAST KEYED dynamic is flagged on BM as "auto-static" -- it is not a static (does NOT appear in the STATIC "box" on dashboard), nor in the DYNAMIC "box'. If one logs into the self-help page on BM itself, and scrolls down to the "static" configuration section, the last-keyed dynamic does show up. Hovering the cursor over it brings up an info box (unfortunately I can't cut&paste the text -- it vanishes if I move the cursor off the group name). The text shows the group number followed by (auto-static) and text to the effect that it is "set automatically as it was the last talk group keyed and one should use 4000 to disconnect fully".

I just connected to the BM web to confirm this status... I haven't keyed 3100 in a few days, but it still shows in the BM "edit repeater" (hotspot) page as an auto-static entry. On a real repeater, BM would not have gone auto-static, but would instead have totally expired it. Apparently one can /schedule/ talk groups to be static for specific periods of time. (CAVEAT -- this does not appear to be an official BM forum) http://brandmeisternetwork.blogspot.com ... roups.html (unfortunately that page seems to conflate the two concepts -- making a talk group a scheduled static, and the behavior of an auto-static group "... so their uses can hear the talkgroup without having to keep it active by pressing the PTT every 10 minutes." which matches auto-static "dynamic" connected groups)

--
AF6VN
Dennis L Bieber
WY0X
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2019 2:00 am

Re: Dynamic Talkgroups "None" still receiving

Post by WY0X »

Interesting discussion.

Now y'all know why I found it really odd that the pi-star was transmitting stuff from a group it wasn't showing at all anymore! Haha.

Appreciate the heads up on the hover-over text on the BM website. That may have been a clue about what oddball state it all somehow got into. I likely would have never found that.
n7ekg
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2021 3:01 pm

Re: Dynamic Talkgroups "None" still receiving

Post by n7ekg »

Obviously, you haven't bothered to read Toshens documentation either.
To avoid any sharp answers of this type, *I* bothered to read it.
You are mistaken. REFRESH the dashboard and look again. Every talk group I've ever keyed on a simplex setup gets added AND DISPLAYED in the dynamic column of the Admin page when you have the BM API key installed. Remember this info COMES from BM, NOT from the hotspot.
I got into the exact same situation this evening, but I don't have any static talkgroups defined, and I removed all the auto-static ones via the BM Manager on the Admin page, THEN I went to the BM website and actually looked for myself. BM shows NO talkgroups, either static or auto-static.

This is what I saw:
Screenshot from 2021-11-10 02-18-31.png
Screenshot from 2021-11-10 02-18-31.png (171.1 KiB) Viewed 2531 times
Please note that there are no static or auto-static talkgroups showing here.

The hotspot should *not* be transmitting, yet it defaults to the last talkgroup, even if I remove it. Went through this many times this evening - when I finally rebooted the hotspot, all was back to normal. It appears that this is either an MMDMV or Pi-Star issue, NOT a BM one.

Interesting behavior. I'm not sure where to look for this, though - it could be in the MMDMV firmware, or somewhere in the Pi-Star code itself. A reboot resolved the issue, yet this is a less-than-optimal solution.
n7ekg
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2021 3:01 pm

Re: Dynamic Talkgroups "None" still receiving

Post by n7ekg »

Here's another example, after a reboot. Please not the talkgroup reverted to the last one that was used, but according to BM, there are no static or auto-static talkgroups.
Screenshot from 2021-11-10 05-28-06.png
Screenshot from 2021-11-10 05-28-06.png (153.23 KiB) Viewed 2527 times
n7ekg
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2021 3:01 pm

Re: Dynamic Talkgroups "None" still receiving

Post by n7ekg »

You are supposed to key up 4000 when you no longer wish to monitor a talkgroup. That should remove it from the list FOR YOU AND stop sending you talkgroup network transmissions.
That was done. Several times.
Last edited by n7ekg on Wed Nov 10, 2021 8:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
n7ekg
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2021 3:01 pm

Re: Dynamic Talkgroups "None" still receiving

Post by n7ekg »

It appears that this is either an MMDMV or Pi-Star issue, NOT a BM one.
And your proof is where??
By the simple, and quite logical, fact that when the Pi is rebooted, the problem goes away. Logically, if it were a BM issue, it would survive between reboots.

That's my proof.
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