Connectivity interruptions


 
K

Karl Vacek

TVWBB Member
My HM has run for weeks continuously on my desk, a couple of feet from the WiFi gateway, either with or without the Ethernet plugged in. But when I go to cook the HM itself keeps running fine, but I lose connectivity after maybe 8-12 hours. A power cycle reboot gets it back online, but often only for half an hour or maybe a bit more, and of course I lose all records of what happened before it stopped communicating. THe HM itself works fine and controls temps, etc. just fine whether or not the RPi is talking.

Thinking it was the Edimax WiFi adapter, I bought a TP-Link and set it up outside, running on a 12V power backup battery and charger. Covered unheated location, clean and reliable power, and a little further than the WSM is when I cook plus behind walls. Ran just fine for a day or two.

I also bought the RA-Link adapter with an external antenna that Nick recommended and it arrived yesterday. It definitely gets a far better signal when I scan for network connections. I decided to install all 3 of my WiFi adapters at once and put probes on it and leave it in the room outside again. All worked well till about 2AM (the last time the HeaterMeter Devices site saw it), and this morning I couldn't communicate with it. No lights flashing on the WiFi adapters (though the one with the antenna doesn't have a light). I brought everything inside still running on the battery and attached the Ethernet cable and nothing from the HeaterMeter Devices site and no response when I tried to browse to the known IP of the Ethernet port. My gateway didn't see it online either. I reset my wireless and when that didn't help, and so I reset the entire gateway, but still no communications.

A power cycle brought everything back online and it's still fine - and all 3 WiFi adapters and the Ethernet are communicating, on my desk, many hours later.

Does this sound like the RPi is crashing?

I have a RPi B+ with the latest snapshot on a SMD HM board that Jascha Epley built for me. I run all communications as DHCP Client (though AP has worked OK too) and have assigned static IP's in my gateway. The RPi isn't set for static IP but when it logs into the gateway it always gets the same IP address from the gateway. Effectively the same.

Where do I start looking? Is there a way to save info in the RPi so I can see what happens when it dies? Or is it actually there somewhere that I don't know to look? All I know to do if I can't communicate is to cycle the power, and that wipes everything as far as I know.
 
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How cold does it get in your covered, unheated location? Perhaps it's getting too cold for the RasPi? Technically, the RasPi is rated for -25C to +80C ( -13F to 176F )

Someone here recently reported a situation where their wifi dongle stopped functioning due to being too cold.
 
It was reporting 21 F most of the time till it stopped communicating, and the HM still said about 21 this AM (I had 3 probes in it), which was consistent with the thermometer and weatherman. We had unusually stable temps here last night, and it was inside a closed room. Also, I had 3 WiFi dongles all running and none was still communicating this AM. And I was able to bring it inside with the battery still attached (big battery backup unit, only unplugged for a minute or two). Once inside, still not booted, at least half an hour passed and the warmth didn't start it.
 
I lived in Chicago and have had the heatermeter running to well below 0 without issue. could it be your battery? I know as temps get lower batteries have a harder time functioning. I used to have similar issues also of loosing my connection to my heatermeter, when I had it outside, not far from the router, I found that my window screen would interfere with the signal.
 
The battery is a new battery backup unit that came with an AT&T gateway. When I dropped AT&T after a week of terrible service, they didn't want the huge brand new battery back. It's a gel cell and it was also plugged into the AC.

The unit continued to function as a HeaterMeter after I brought it back inside, still on the battery. Sat running inside for a long time but still no communications even with an Ethernet cable till I cycled the power to reboot. The only thing affected seems to be the Raspberry Pi. I'll flash the latest A+ snapshot to it and see if that helps. I'd flashed it Feb.3 using a snapshot that Bryan had posted less than an hour before, but the snapshot on the site now is Feb.4, one day later.
 
I haven't done anything further yet. The unit is on my desk running continuously, and has run fine without any intervention since the 15th, which is 5 days now. Still communicating fine via Ethernet and Wifi. I'll probably disconnect the Ethernet next and see how long it goes on WiFi alone. Having the battery backup allows me to momentarily unplug to relocate everything outside without any rebooting.

I'm beginning to wonder if something is a tight fit and flexes a board or something when everything shrinks a bit in colder temps? It certainly acted as if the Pi had crashed.
 
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