Not hearing anything on TG3100

[wb4sqi]

Was off my hotspot for a few days, turned it back on and not hearing anything on TG3100, which was very active a few weeks ago.

Saw the upgrade nag so upgraded to the latest pi-star 4.1.4 dated 8 Feb. 2021, Admin shows kernel 5.10.11-v7+, still not hearing anything.

MMDVM Host, DMR Gateway and pi-star watchdog are all highlighted in green, same as before when it was working properly. Also discovered that TG3990 parrot is not working now so apparently something is amiss between my hotspot (Pi 3B+ and Chinese HAT) and the network.

Checked the BM selfcare page and my password is still OK there and on the BM security window in pi-star. Hotspot is connected to the internet via router and shows exchanging packets and bytes.

I think I've reached the end of my troubleshooting abilities, any ideas folks?

Nick
WB4SQI

[G8SEZ]

Open a new tab with live log enabled and see what shows up there.

You should see various messages that will help, but if not then come back and we can see what's happening with a bit more information.

[wb4sqi]

Hello Brian,

Not seeing anything on live logs.

Out of futility this morning I duplicated my DMR hotspot with a Pi Zero W, running the latest software. I set it up the exact same way as the Pi3B+ and it hears nothing ether nor do I hear parrot playing back my test signal.

I know my internet is working because I also run a D-star hotspot and it's been busy all morning.

If I were starting from new I would assume that I have missed a setting somewhere but the Zero W has been in use all winter here and worked well until sometime mid-February.

Appreciate your thoughts.

Nick
WB4SQI

[G8SEZ]

You said BM selfcare, did you set up a hotspot security password? That is necessary now on the US BM servers, and it isn't the same password as the BM account login. Just wanted to make sure you have that correct.

[wb4sqi]

You said BM selfcare, did you set up a hotspot security password? That is necessary now on the US BM servers, and it isn't the same password as the BM account login. Just wanted to make sure you have that correct.

Yes sir, totally different password. All this was working correctly until a few weeks ago.

Nick

[wb4sqi]

Not seeing anything on live logs.

Do you see it say it successfully connected to the DMR Master? Or do you see it say it tried connecting and failed and is retrying repeatedly?

My guess is that it isn't connecting, not seeing anything other than "Starting logging, please wait...."

Out of futility this morning I duplicated my DMR hotspot with a Pi Zero W, running the latest software. I set it up the exact same way as the Pi3B+ and it hears nothing ether nor do I hear parrot playing back my test signal.

If you have multiple hotspots on at the same time make sure they each have a unique ESSID assigned to each one.

Only running one at a time as I assumed both would cause conflict. I only had one spare power supply also so it gets witched between the two hotspots. The Pi Zero is the one I have been running for the last 24 hours or so.

If the ESSIDs are identical, BM will only allow one of them to work correctly. That was implemented to prevent loopbacks where one hotspot triggered your second hotspot and repeated.

[wb4sqi]

@KE7FNS

Just for grins I enabled D-star on this hotspot and set it to REF30C. I started getting conversations immediately so I know that the hotspot is communicating with the net.

I didn't believe either SD card to be corrupted as both were re-formated with SD Card formatter but in thinking back to yesterday, neither card would pass verification. At the time I dismissed this as "not a problem" but now I'm not so sure.

Think I'll take your suggestion and re-format with something else and re-load the new image. Thanks for the hint.

Nick

[wb4sqi]

OK, overnight update:

The new re-flash was verified by Balena Etcher so I went through the setup as if it was a new hotpot. I started live logs and let it run all night.

Live logs reported my RF activity (tested with TG4000, TG3990 (didn't work) and TG3100). This morning There was a lot of data on the live logs page but no DMR activity. Live logs presented a report of my setup with the last line telling me that it was connected to the Master successfully.

Apparently this is a pretty deep problem. It's almost as if I am banned/blocked on DMR.

Nick

[wb4sqi]

Success!

Looking through configuration for anything that seemed odd I noticed for the wireless it was still showing JP as the country. Changed to US and now I am receiving stations and parrot is working. Such a tiny thing can cause so much trouble.

Oh well, lesson learned.

Thanks to all for your help,

Nick
WB4SQI