Network change at home - but I think there are other issues with my Heatermeter


 
R

RKHanso

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I recently had a WiFi router change at my home. I had to change the wifi settings so I tried, but I think there may be some other problem with my Heatermeter now.
When I connect an Ethernet cable between my PC and the Heatermeter, I get 2 different results, depending on what cable I use. I've removed these cables from other working PCs in the house, so they should be OK.

one cable does nothing when I connect to my PC and the heatermeter. In the network properties, my Windows 10 PC doesn't see that there's anything connected to the Ethernet port (I usually use WiFi and have not had anything plugged into this port in a long time).
Another cable makes my heatermeter red and yellow lights flash on and off as soon as it's connected to both devices.

Now, my heatermeter will read 16F when it's powered up and no probes connected, but when I connect a pit probe, it jumps up to 600+ degrees F. I was hoping that I just had a corrupted SD card and was going to re-image it, but I'm not sure now.

I'm not sure how I should troubleshoot these symptoms.

It's a 4.2 version that has been working for the last couple years just fine. I've never had to do anything to the software or hardware on it - it's been rock-solid....until now.
 
That 16F -> 600F sounds like you've got a Thermocouple pit probe? Those are roughly the numbers you could see if the probe type was reset to the default and it was trying to read it like a thermistor type. Hard to say if you an't get into it to see the webui though.

I'm not sure what you'd expect to see plugging the Ethernet cable directly between the HeaterMeter and a PC. Ethernet isn't like a USB device so I don't think it would show up in any way. I could be wrong about this though because I've not tried it. I'm also not sure why the device reboots when you plug the other cable in, but that seems like something bad is happening. If it is causing the device to reboot, this could indicate why you lost your HeaterMeter config. I've seen the EEPROM on the microcontroller reset due to an electrical anomaly.

I'd grab the latest snapshot image pre-configured for your wifi network and flash that to your sd card. That should get you back on the network and then you can check the configuration in the webui.
 
I re-flashed the SD card and set the WiFi in the config file and it's working again.
And yes, I did do a reset to default on the Heatermeter and that's why my temp was acting that way. I didn't think to check the type of probe in the GUI.

It appears to be working again. I'm smoking a pork belly to make bacon and needed to get the heatermeter going.

When the thing runs so rock solid for years, and my memory isn't what it used to be - I need some help with those things I did to get it set up back then.

Thanks Bryan.
 
Well, I'm still having trouble connecting to the HM over WiFi.

I've edited the config.txt file and saved it (even re-opened it to make sure the # are still not there), but after I boot up the HM, the # at the beginning of the WiFi lines keep coming back

gpu_mem=32
arm_freq=800
arm_freq_min=700
sdram_freq=400
core_freq=250

##
## wifi configuration
##
# SSID (network name)
wifi_ssid=makcomm2.4G
# Password for encryption
wifi_password=mypassword
# Encryption mode psk2 (WPA2-PSK default), psk, wep, none
wifi_encryption=psk2
# Mode ap (Access Point) or sta (Client mode, default). Must be lowercase!
#wifi_mode=ap
# wifi channel, only used in AP mode
#wifi_channel=6

And, my WiFi router doesn't see the HM on the wireless network. I change the config again (removing the hashes at the front of those 3 lines) and they get added again after booting the HM - the same thing happens over and over.

If I do a reset on the HM, then the Heatermeter WiFi is seen and I can connect to it and change my PC's IP address to 192.168.201.2 and connect to the HM. I'm waiting a good 3 minutes after booting up the HM, thinking it may take some time for the WiFi to connect. I thought 3 minutes should be plenty of time.

I'm probably doing something really simple incorrectly. But I can't figure it out.
 
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I just got my first HM working 2 days ago. I had initially forgotten to uncomment those wifi settings. It looks like you uncommented the Encryption as well. I believe most wpa2 encryptions use aes.

Reflash your SD card with the img file. And only uncomment the ssid and password before you insert it back into the HM.
 
DLong said:
I just got my first HM working 2 days ago. I had initially forgotten to uncomment those wifi settings. It looks like you uncommented the Encryption as well. I believe most wpa2 encryptions use aes.

Reflash your SD card with the img file. And only uncomment the ssid and password before you insert it back into the HM.
Click to expand...

I tried your suggestions excactly. I still don't see it on the network. The first time I plugged it in, it came up with: Network 192.168.201.1 in the HM display.

I don't see the Heatermeter SSID from my desktop PC either, so that is good, I believe.

The heatermeter is still not seen on the WiFi network. I've rebooted the HM - no change.

I again took the SD card out and see that the hashes (#) were added back into the config.txt file.

If I put the SD card back in with the Hashes in all the lines of the config.txt file, I don't see the Heatermeter SSID on WiFI on my PC.

Frustrating..
 
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The hashes do come back on their own, which means that the configuration process is happening. It puts them back on after it pulls the information in.

Does your wifi password have any special characters in it? If so that might be giving the configuration script some problems. If you do, usually putting the password in quotes (single quotes or double I think work) will fix this.
 
Ditto - I also struggled a bit similar to RKHanso untill I simplified my wifi SSID and password as both had special characters in. The HM connected then straight away after which hardened my wifi password a bit testing each change on the HM and all were good.

Last weekend I took my UDS with the HM to my son's house to cook for a party, I merely got him to change his router's 2.4Ghz SSID and PW to be the same than mine rather than to change it on my HM. All their wifi gadgets are using his 5ghz so it did not interrupt them at all.
 
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No special characters in the password. Just my mobile phone number - Ten numbers.

When I do a reset, the wifi works with the HM giving out the heatermeter SSID.....so I know my USB dongle works. I just can't get it to work with my home WiFi.

Any other thoughts? Things to try/test?

Should I plug a monitor and keyboard/mouse into the Raspberry PI and troubleshoot it that way?
 
Can't you make heatermeter the access point then have your computer or phone connect to it and change the Wi-Fi settings in the gui interface
 
What model of wifi adapter are you using and is this an original Pi B or A? If I have the same hardware here I can give it a try to see if there's a problem with the software.

Other than that, I can't think of anything else easy to check. It is pretty difficult to tell why a wifi client connection is failing because there's not any sort of logging at that level. Also, what is the IP address range of your home network? As long as it isn't 192.168.200.x you should be ok. Also be sure you do not have the Ethernet plugged in while trying to use the Wifi on the same network, because the wifi will appear to not work (it can receive packets but not transmit back out the wifi).

I guess you can also try to configure it from the LinkMeter -> Wifi webui page while it is running in HeaterMeter AP mode. At least you can see there if it can see your wifi network when it scans.
 
I have the Edimiax USB WiFi, which has worked great on the HM the past couple years. I have a Raspberry Pi A+

After a while, the green light on the Raspberry Pi keeps blinking 8x and pauses, then repeats. Looking online, might that be something with the SD card? Or needing a newer version of software? Those are the only 2 solutions I found for the 8x blinking green light. But, since I can do a reset on the HM and then get into the Heatermeter SSID, change my IP of my PC to 192.168.201.2 and then connect to the HM at 192.168.201.1 and use the GUI, the SD card has to be good. It's only when I try to use my home WiFi that the trouble starts. I rebooted my home WiFi Router and still have the same trouble.

HMWIFI.PNG


After further thinking about this though.... when I reflash or reset the HM and it comes up with the Heatermeter SSID active, the green light still flashes 8x and repeats. Considering I can access the HM GUI at this time, maybe that 8x flashing is a non-issue....


DLong said:
Can't you make heatermeter the access point then have your computer or phone connect to it and change the Wi-Fi settings in the gui interface
Click to expand...
Yes, I do that but when I click save/apply, I lose my connection to the Heatermeter SSID (and that stops broadcasting) but the HM is never seen on the home WiFi network after that.

After I log into the Heatermeter SSID, change the WiFi settings to my Home WiFi and apply/save, the blue light on the Edimax US WiFi dongle keeps flashing blue like it's talking, but I just don't see in in the XyXel C2100Z wifi ip/mac address list. I don't know if the HM is getting an IP address (guessing no, otherwise it would be in the list).
 
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I'm not sure why, but it started working. The only thing I did was to give a bit of an 'air gap' between the Raspberry Pi and the LCD display.

I wonder if something was touching/shorting/grounding. Has this ever been an issue with anyone before?

Maybe I need to put something non-conductive between them?
 
Well consider me shrugging here. I know the 4.3 the LCD backlight pin can contact the USB port or Ethernet jack and cause a short (but not while in a case), but I've not seen any reports of a 4.2 with any sort of problems like that. Very strange and I hate solutions that are sort of voodoo, but I'm glad it is working I guess? :-D
 
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