Stable Firmware Release v14

[Bryan Mayland]

ROM is read only, and all changes on the filesystem are reset when you do "Reset Config". The only way to change /rom is to extract the squashfs image to a directory on another machine, make the changes, rebuild the squashfs, and dd it back onto the microsd. Are you doing custom branded devices or something like that?

[Peter F]

I've made a special layout for the members of the Dutch BBQ-society. This is quite a big group of heatermeter users (150+) and most of them are not so computer savvy. If they lose their familiar web interface every time they do a hard reset then I will be extremely busy fixing their heatermeters.

[Mache]

Will I have better luck with the Airlink AWLL5099? The Rosewill RNX-MiniN2? Rather than the Edimax EW-7811Un.

[Bryan Mayland]

Unfortunately it is a problem at the driver level. I set up 3x HeaterMeters with Edimax adapters yesterday to see if I could reproduce this and yup, one of the three dropped off in the middle of the night but came back up later this morning. I checked the kernel log on that device and there was no errors or even any log messages at all from the driver. I have one of the devices connected to a monitor and keyboard so I can look at it when it isn't working but it hasn't had a problem. I'm really not sure what to do about it because I've checked and the rtl8xxxu driver still doesn't support AP mode, and I guess the rtl8192cu driver isn't ever going to be stable. I'm continuing to work on it because maybe I can include both drivers and switch between them depending on the mode?

If anyone wants to give me a Halloween present, they can just add soft AP mode to the rtl8xxxu driver!

[Bryan Mayland]

I've made a special layout for the members of the Dutch BBQ-society. This is quite a big group of heatermeter users (150+) and most of them are not so computer savvy. If they lose their familiar web interface every time they do a hard reset then I will be extremely busy fixing their heatermeters.

Is it all just usercss or is there more? If there is a backup it can be restored but I know that's not very helpful.

[Peter F]

It's more then just usercss, the index file is modified and there are two additional jpeg's

[Bryan Mayland]

Oof, well let me think about that a bit and see what we can come up with.

On the Edimax front, I've spent 16 hours today working on that stupid 8192cu driver and I feel like I am making some progress. That thing is the worst. I am surprised it works at all given how hacked up the source code is.

Of my 3 test devices I had running the mainline rtl8192cu driver, all three have dropped off now and come back, all without any kernel messages or errors. Oddly, it can lose connection to the AP and come back. I tested carrying a HeaterMeter out of range and it dropped off, then started walking back and it came back up almost immediately. I've also seen it disconnect and reconnect and it reports that it lost the AP. So the mainline isn't complete garbage, but it definitely drops out and can take hours to come back. I gotta get that out-of-tree driver working. I got it updated and compiling on our kernel, but not against backports (the ole compat-wireless). I'm hoping that once it actually builds against it, then it will actually work and not just segfault on load or something.

Been a long day today.

[Mache]

I really appreciate the effort. Thanksgiving is a'comin and I hope to have a sorted out controller to smoke my turkeys/other goodies. Thank you again.

[Bryan Mayland]

It's more then just usercss, the index file is modified and there are two additional jpeg's

I've spent some time thinking about it and I can't think of how to do this in a persistent way. The old "config reset" was sort of half broken in that it only could reset certain files so it could leave things half reset, and it didn't work with the newer rebootless configuration restore process. The only way you can do this is to mod the squashfs image you use. It's a one time thing and can easily be scripted so I'd encourage you to do that.

• Grab the two parts of the image from the proper target https://heatermeter.com/dl/stable_14/ you need boot.img and root.squashfs and the gen_rpi_sdcard_img.sh which is constant.
• unsquashfs root.squashfs and copy your changes into the filesystem
• rebuild the squashfs
  

  ./mksquashfs4 XXX YYY -nopad -noappend -root-owned -comp xz -Xpreset 9 -Xe -Xlc 0 -Xlp 2 -Xpb 2 -Xbcj arm -b 256k -p '/dev d 755 0 0' -p '/dev/console c 600 0 0 5 1' -processors 1 -fixed -time `date "+%s"`
  # Where XXX is the directory with the uncompressed filesystem and YYY is the output file name

• Make sure the squashfs image is a multiple of 64KB if you're going to flash it using a Mac flashing program that needs it to be
• gen_rpi_sdcard_img.sh outputimage.img boot.img YYY 19 64

The only magic is really the mksquashfs command and I'm not sure how much of that is even actually needed.

[Steve_M]

If you're using apple pi-baker on the mac, it shouldn't matter. The author has added the "conv=sync" option in recent releases after we were discussing it.