Topic: Issue with my FW 8.3b2 (Issue Resolved)

[Silversword]

Hi All,

Looks like I developed and issue with  FW 8.3b2 that I updated around January 9th. Prior to this FW I was using 7.4 and that seemed to be stable for the past year.

I think it kinda started today for some reason. It was stable from the time I did the update, until today....

It seems to be an issue with the Network.  The display will cycle on after about reaching the 25s count in the Net mode. Then the display will turn off and a few seconds later it turns back on with the NET black background, then it the black background clears then the count begins.  It does this cycle over and over.

On the Blitzortung board in the Station List area, my station sometimes is in the running mode and sometimes it goes into Idle mode.

Can anyone shed a light as to what is happening?

Any suggestions and recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

--Stan Y.
   Maui, Hawaii

[satcop]

Hi Stan;

I believe your station is a red.  I wonder if you are having the same problem that a few of us are.  It appears that a number of Region 3 red stations are having problems getting through to the server since a bit after 1033 utc yesterday.  My red device is not getting through but the blue device is.  If I reboot the server changes status to running for a short time, or if I put the unit into interference mode it also shows that status, but no signals appear to go through.  On the blitzortung web site Mike let me know that it wasn't just my station that was having the issue.

Bob

[miraculon]

This was an issue about a month ago  (early December), then it mysteriously disappeared.
It seems to affect my RED, but not my Blue system for some reason.
I checked the cabinet that houses both controllers and the dreaded "NET" icon was flashing again. Typically, if you attempt to connect to the GUI you will get either a very truncated HTML rendering or a blank page.
There was some traffic on the Blitzortung forum about this some time back.
It was widely agreed that it was a server-side issue and since it corrected itself, I didn't worry about it until this morning. (this is why I check the controller status every morning)
Other than raising it with Egon and/or Tobi, there isn't much we can do with it since it is not the controller (or firmware, I reverted it as an experiment the last time this came up)

Greg H.

p.s. Maybe Cutty will chime in on this....

[miraculon]

Hi Stan;

I believe your station is a red.  I wonder if you are having the same problem that a few of us are.  It appears that a number of Region 3 red stations are having problems getting through to the server since a bit after 1033 utc yesterday.  My red device is not getting through but the blue device is.  If I reboot the server changes status to running for a short time, or if I put the unit into interference mode it also shows that status, but no signals appear to go through.  On the blitzortung web site Mike let me know that it wasn't just my station that was having the issue.

Bob

satcop, same exact thing here. Blue is fine, RED is susceptible to this... 

Greg H.

[Silversword]

Hi All,

Thanks for the replies and info with this issue.

Yes, it is the Red system and another symptom as appeared.  I set the display to turn off at 30 second and the display does turn off and it will come back on when the NET goes black. Also the blue LED remains on blinking and the green LED above it remains on. I also went back to FW 7.4 just to see if FW 8.3b2 had malfunctioned but it was the same situation.  Reverted back to FW 8.3b2 for now and will let it ride and see what happens.

A wait and see situation?

Regards,

--Stan Y.
   Maui, Hawaii

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Egon's aware of the issue... but it's wait and see... most of the affected stations appear to be 'idle'... This doesn't appear to be local firmware...

[satcop]

The Active Stations Chart and the Signals of all Stations chart on the Network Tab on Lightningmaps.org is quite interesting and gives an idea on the magnitude of the problem.  Instantaneously the number of active stations in the region went from about 110 to about 70, and the number of signals for all stations went surprisingly way up from about 100K to 900K.

[satcop]

No sooner stop typing than it appears we may be back up.

[Silversword]

Hi All,

satcop: noticed that too.  Looks like something is happening with their server.

Thanks Mike for the info that Egon is aware for this issue.

Thanks Greg for you input as well.  I thought I had an issue with my router or the network cable connector on the Red board. Maybe I may have that issue as well. If things persists, I may take my system board apart and check with the solder around that network connector. Hope it does not come to that... It has been working up to this point...

Is there a setting that I might have missed in this FW that is causing the center status lights go off when the display goes off?  It used to before all this happenings.  I have that blue blinking LED and the constant on green LED on top above the blue LED.  Occasionally the right red LED blinks.

The NET seems to be more stable but it occasionally goes into that black background situation.

Guess the wait and see what transpires in the mean time...

Regards,

--Stan Y.
   Maui, Hawaii 

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Stan, if I understand you:
RED, normal operation:
On the 'center quad" of micro LEDs:
Top: GREEN, solid, GPS lock
Left: BLUE, 1 PPS clock signal flashes
Right ORANGE. Flashes on triggers
RED, Interference, fault, other.  Normally off or brief flash maybe in high noise.

Those indicators should be like that regardless of display status, except when resetting, rebooting, or powering up.

The Red flashing LED on the discovery board, upper right, should flash all the time, at about 2 seconds. Why? dunno....
The Lower RED power indicator should be solid lit.
This is for system red.
Mike

btw... I think Egon suspects firmware... I am suspicious of that, unless they've changed some things on server/s... I think it's a data thing on server/s end... they may have it resolved by now, I noticed several stations,including my RED, were back up, but there seems to be some issues with detection processing on the RED data, which really doesn't make sense in a way...since Tobi hasn't changed firmware and this was across several versions.  ??:I've been wrong before

[Silversword]

Stan, if I understand you:
RED, normal operation:
On the 'center quad" of micro LEDs:
Top: GREEN, solid, GPS lock
Left: BLUE, 1 PPS clock signal flashes
Right ORANGE. Flashes on triggers
RED, Interference, fault, other.  Normally off or brief flash maybe in high noise.

Those indicators should be like that regardless of display status, except when resetting, rebooting, or powering up.

The Red flashing LED on the discovery board, upper right, should flash all the time, at about 2 seconds. Why? dunno....
The Lower RED power indicator should be solid lit.
This is for system red.
Mike

btw... I think Egon suspects firmware... I am suspicious of that, unless they've changed some things on server/s... I think it's a data thing on server/s end... they may have it resolved by now, I noticed several stations,including my RED, were back up, but there seems to be some issues with detection processing on the RED data, which really doesn't make sense in a way...since Tobi hasn't changed firmware and this was across several versions.  ??:I've been wrong before

Thanks for the reply Mike.  Yes, on the first part and that is where before, those lights used to be off when the display goes off.  Maybe I am wrong again.  Not being too observant at times.

On the second part that is on the Discovery Board, all that is happening.  There is also a green LED on the far left side that is always on for me.

My NET is still not stable, seems to go into the "black zone" quite often, but it seems to be more stable compared to last night.

Regards,

--Stan Y.
   Maui, Hawaii

[Silversword]

Hi All again,

It seems that all is well again. I have not seen that "black" NET background today so far, so hope that it stays that way again.

Thank you all for the info and explaining as to what is happening with the system and that I am not alone out here.

Regards,

--Stan Y.
   Maui, Hawaii

[Silversword]

Hi All,

I was tinkering around and found a way to turn off the blinking blue LED and the other 3 LED when the LCD is turned off.  See my attachment as to where I found this.

Hope that helps others that might want to do this.

Regards,

--Stan Y.
   Maui, Hawaii

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

   Never noticed or forgot about that! Usually keep my LCD off, and about all I ever interface with RED anymore is bring H1 channel gain back when N² kicks in (N²='Neighbor Noise') Feature of RED w/LCD.  Not Applicable to BLUE systems.,.