Dashboard Doesn't Show Linked in the Morning

Help with YSF / Fusion issues
Post Reply
wa0gmh
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:39 pm

Dashboard Doesn't Show Linked in the Morning

Post by wa0gmh »

I have three hotspots that are linked to FCS00241. They are left turned on overnight. They work fine during the day, but in the morning the dashboard shows that they are no longer linked. If I transmit to any of them with an FT-70D, it shows that it received the transmission, but it remains unlinked and the other two hotspots don't show the transmission. If I go into configuration and click on "apply changes", the hotspot will link to FCS00241 after approximately 30 seconds.

These are Chinese Jumbospots. All of them are running dashboard 20190905 and all of the firmwares are v1.4.17. One of the hotspots is running Pi-Star 4.0.0-RC4 on a Pi 3B+ and two of them are running Pi-Star 4.1.0-RC6 on Pi Zero Ws. I upgraded the firmware on the two hotspots running Pi-Star 4.1.0-RC6 from v1.3.3 and the firmware on the hotspot runninng Pi-Star 4.0.0 from v1.4.12 yesterday and don't remember this problem before I upgraded.

Has anyone seen this? Thanks for any suggestions.

Fred WA0GMH
wa0gmh
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:39 pm

Re: Dashboard Doesn't Show Linked in the Morning

Post by wa0gmh »

My internet provider is doing some work on the system. I noticed that my internet went down a few minutes ago, then came back up. All three of the hotspots became unlinked and did not link to FCS00241 until I either clicked on "apply changes" or rebooted the hotspot.

My Linux knowledge is limited, but does this line in the System Cron re-establish the WiFi link every 5 minutes?

*/5 * * * * root /usr/local/sbin/pistar-upnp.service start > /dev/null 2>&1 &

Fred WA0GMH
wa0gmh
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:39 pm

Re: Dashboard Doesn't Show Linked in the Morning

Post by wa0gmh »

Universal Plug and Play includes establishing network services. So is UPnP only used when the hotspot is first booted (powered up)? If so, what maintains the link if it drops out temporarily? Most devices will re-establish the link if a connection drops out and comes back.
wa0gmh
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:39 pm

Re: Dashboard Doesn't Show Linked in the Morning

Post by wa0gmh »

Thanks for the explanation. I've never delved into the TCP/IP network layers. Logically it would seem that something would re-establish a WiFi link if it was temporarily lost. Seeing that the UPnP service was run every 5 minutes looked promising.

I can duplicate the problem by rebooting the wireless router, so a temporary work around is to reboot the hotspot periodically. I've added a line to System Cron to reboot it around 2 am and that seems to be working.
wa0gmh
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:39 pm

Re: Dashboard Doesn't Show Linked in the Morning

Post by wa0gmh »

Thanks again. I have another Raspberry Pi running with an APRS hat and it always restarts when the internet is lost or the router reboots. I guess what I need to do is see if I can find a difference in how the networking is set up.

Now I have another problem. The OLED display on a Jumbospot I have worked fine using Pi-Star 4.0.0 and the previous dashboard. After the dashboard upgrade to 20191016 it didn't appear to completely erase the screens when they change. I upgraded to Pi-Star 4.1.1 and thought it was working, but this morning it's doing the same thing. The dashboard is now also completely blank (dark) after the hang time. I no longer see the scrolling MMDVM.

Has any one else seen this?
User avatar
KE0FHS
Posts: 1122
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 8:40 pm
Location: Colorado, USA
Contact:

Re: Dashboard Doesn't Show Linked in the Morning

Post by KE0FHS »

wa0gmh wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:20 pm Has any one else seen this?
Dave, KC6N, figured this out: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2202#p10725

There's a new setting in Expert Editor > MMDVMHost > OLED: LogoScreensaver
By default, it's set to 0. Set to 1 to get the logo back.
73, Toshen, KE0FHS
Playing with Pi-Star (unofficial notes about setting up and using Pi-Star):
https://amateurradionotes.com/pi-star.htm
wa0gmh
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:39 pm

Re: Dashboard Doesn't Show Linked in the Morning

Post by wa0gmh »

Interesting. I tried a hotspot that had not been left on overnight and it worked fine. It does not show a line to enable showing the LogoScreenSaver. It shows the same dashboard version (20191016) and version of Pi-Star (4.1.0-RC6) as the one that doesn't work.

The working hotspot is a Jumbospot hat on a Pi Zero W and the one not working is a Jumbospot hat on a Pi3B+. I had turned on scroll in the expert menu (OLED) to get MMDVM to scroll on the Pi 3B+. This worked fine until this morning.

I just turned on LogoScreenSaver and the OLED still showed gibberish. I turned scroll off (back to 0) and this got rid of the gibberish I saw on the OLED, and it stopped MMDVM from scrolling.

So it appears that if I have scroll on, the OLED does not work properly. MMDVM is shown after the hangtime, but the display of the person calling and the screen showing the IP address are both messed up. It's an easy fix to not have scroll turned on, but I thought someone might be interested in this observation.

Go to UTube and search for KN4KUU. He has videos about stopping the automatic updates and how to automatically reset Pi-Star if you lose network connectivity.
User avatar
KE0FHS
Posts: 1122
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 8:40 pm
Location: Colorado, USA
Contact:

Re: Dashboard Doesn't Show Linked in the Morning

Post by KE0FHS »

Scott, VK7HSE, has a hint about garbled text: If your OLED display has garbled text, check your Display Level in the Expert Editor > MMDVMHost > Log section. It must be set to 0.
73, Toshen, KE0FHS
Playing with Pi-Star (unofficial notes about setting up and using Pi-Star):
https://amateurradionotes.com/pi-star.htm
Post Reply