KongSDR with no net connection after power outage [scan tool has been fixed]
After a power outage I use to have problems getting my Kiwi on the air again. I am used to having 2-3 attempts to power on before it will start. In these instances, it will flash a single led dit-dit. And nothing more happens. Then after a few tries it does boot properly from the looks of the leds.
However today, when it finally booted, the ethernet port did not seem to be willing to respond, with only the green led lit. Ethernet cables replaced etc., no cigar. I then started the scan, but nothing found.
Im at loss now. I need to get it up today, or it will be offline for the next week, which is a loss for many listeners.
However today, when it finally booted, the ethernet port did not seem to be willing to respond, with only the green led lit. Ethernet cables replaced etc., no cigar. I then started the scan, but nothing found.
Im at loss now. I need to get it up today, or it will be offline for the next week, which is a loss for many listeners.
Comments
https://beagleboard.org/latest-images
2. that the devices (either) are asking for more current than they used to due to increased load or aging capacitors etc.
If you can try the Kiwi on that supply alone see if the issue goes away, if it does either have two supplies capable of at least 1.5A continuous or one 5V good for 4/5A to give a little headroom.
Have you checked the DC at boot up on a scope in case it is momentarily limiting?
I'm only talking from experience, it might be that I am seeing a similar issue to you but have hidden it with power supply behavior.
If mine won't boot cleanly I make sure nothing else is on the 5V then put the plug in at the PCB.
have you tried seeing if it boots with the other SDR running and being literally plugged in right at the SDR?
I have booted the Kiwi both with and without additional load - today mostly without since I wanted to remove any uncertainty. The NetSDR boots and runs with SDR Console without problems. Previous to today, there were no problems with this co-existence. However, the power outage today did change the game, or was maybe the catalyst.
Right now I'd just power the Kiwi down and move the Kiwi to BB pin header coupling in and out a few mm to ensure the pins are clean (take static precautions just in case).
I assume the PSU and Kiwi are adequately cooled?
I didn't understand whether it successfully booted today or not (with just the Kiwi)?
Stu
Yes, no heat problems. I have even taken the box off the Kiwi.
You are looking to see what traffic if anything comes out of the interface.
I suppose it is possible that between the two SDR's you've had some induced voltage that has cooked something, is there long wire somewhere in the mix and are you grounding out any static?
Did you try disturbing the Kiwi-BB coupling, faultfinding is easier if we exclude stuff, there are fair number of signals and obviously power going across that interface.
The fact it does not get any further than the dit-dit is probably an indicator of greater problems so if you are sure the PSU is good and the interface is clean I'll butt out and wait for the cavalry.
I suppose you could re-flash it with the SD card but I won't be going there as I've not done that myself.
It may have got corrupted by many partial boots, also elsewhere I read that the momentary voltage drop due to power-on surge on current limited supplies can corrupt the flash.
I've only ever had one case with the symptoms you describe, and in the end UI had to reflash it from an SD card.
Because I've been caught out in the past (usually due to my own mistakes when fiddling with some aspect of the KiWi code) I now try to keep an reasonably up to date backup on an SD card at all times (and certainly make a backup before trying anything risky) so that I can quickly get out of trouble if required.
It's also particularly important if you have the antenna switching option installed or any other specific config or DX.json files.
Regards,
Martin - G8JNJ
The BBG is annoying in that is takes 5V over a microUSB as opposed to the 2.1mm barrel jack of the Kiwi and BBB. If you use a cellphone USB-to-microUSB cable you are back to the problem of possible voltage drop from the cable using too small diameter wires. So don't use a long cable. This situation is improved because the BBG alone will only require around 500 mA at 5V.
Don't bother putting a stock Debian image on another sd card. If you're getting the normal Kiwi LED pattern then the software is fine. But the "couple of LED flashes then nothing" you describe is also a symptom of the BBG PHY failure, or power supply under-voltage, problem.
Your Bel supply does have a little trimpot someplace to adjust the 5V output. You could take it up to, say, 5.15V and see if it makes any difference. There is some drop through the little common mode choke and PCB traces on the Kiwi board before the 5V is routed to the BBG 5V input. The BBG should start with up to 5.25V on its input and shouldn't blow-up if the voltage exceeds that value somewhat (but it won't startup). But why this has changed after a year makes no sense.
Be extremely careful when re-attaching the Kiwi board that the header pins line up properly. See here: http://kiwisdr.com/quickstart/quickstart.pdf
So! Nothing's really changed, but I have an ethernet light!
The "dit-dit" of the leftmost of the 4 LEDs is the Linux "heartbeat" pattern. After a power on does this just happen once and then never again or does it happen every second or so? (the normal sequence is dit-dit, pause for 1 second, dit-dit, ...) Do any of the other 3 LEDs flash ever after a power up? They indicate access to the sd card, eMMC filesystem and if Linux is idle or not.
But if you re-flashed to v1.2 and an update to v1.235+ over the network has not happened then the LED take over doesn't apply.
Do you get the yellow/orange LED on the RJ45 as well? I think that indicates a 100 mbps connection (vs only 10). The green LED should flash when there is traffic on the network and it is odd that it isn't. Even if the router is isolating you from other network traffic usually some broadcast packets get through and the greed LED will flash occasionally.
Scrub that just checking quickstart its DHCP, can't remember why I fixed mine, might have been to narrow down connectivity issues back in the day.
I do not get the orange led. I am connected to a 4G modem/router TP-Link. but I have an Intel NUC which is connected to the same modem, and its orange led does light on it.
You remember correctly ;-)
The auto-discovery scanner doesn't see anything, but it is painstakingly slow compared to when it was new. One port is 20 seconds.
One of the Ethernet PHY failure modes I saw here was only one LED (orange or green) in addition to no LEDs. So maybe this is still a PHY problem given that the green LED is not flashing. It would be very helpful to do a ping to the Beagle. But then you must know the ip address..