💬 Building a Raspberry Pi Gateway

[petewill]

@mfalkvidd Thanks. I thought about doing something like that but I wasn't sure that was the best process or if something should be modified during the install. I'll give it a shot this way though. Thanks again.

[petewill]

@gohan Sorry, I did not see your reply earlier. I tried an ethernet gateway in node-red a while ago and could never get it to work with Vera. There was some port conflicts or something. I have never played with mqtt. I need to learn it at some point but I am hoping to finish this project so I can move on to some others. :) Do you think I will gain significant advantages by using that over a serial/usb gateway?

[gohan]

From a node-red perspective, IMHO, mqtt is easier to handle even without specific mysensors nodes, but it all depends what you need to do. I played with it some months ago but I got stuck when I had to start using javascript as I still don't know that language, but it was quite easy to link mysensors values to the dashboard without actually touching any code.

[petewill]

@gohan Thanks! I seem to have the serial stuff working well (but haven't yet put it into production) so I think I'll go that way for now. I definitely need to look into mqtt at some point though.

[gohan]

Ofc it has its PROs and CONs but I believe it is the way to go for the future.

[fleinze]

I compiled the gateway for spi1 because I have a display using spi0. Two problems I came across:

1. the master branch doesn't work. It compiles, it seems to work but it never receives anything.
2. the development branch works but I needed to define the right cs-pin even if I redirected the pin in config.txt (with dtoverlay=spi1-1cs,cs0_pin=16)
   The following configure worked for me:

./configure --spi-driver=SPIDEV --spi-spidev-device=/dev/spidev1.0 --my-rf24-cs-pin=36 --my-rf24-ce-pin=33 --my-rf24-irq-pin=31

[Inso]

For the ones having problems with the stable build (Version 2.1.1), always getting "mysgw: !TSM:INIT:TSP FAIL":
Seems there is a bug, you have to install "development" (Version 2.2.0)
Maybe someone adds an note on top of the tutorial, so others won´t also spend hours in searching for the problem on their Pi/Hardware.

[gohan]

So far it looks to me it is something related to the latest versions of Linux since it was working on older releases

[Inso]

@gohan ah okay wasn´t aware of it, as the dev channel worked I assumed the bug at MySensors.
However, would be awesome if there were a little hint in the tutorial. Took plenty of time to find out it was an software incompability ;)

[arraWX]

A little hint in the tutorial would have saved me a lot of time too.

[gohan]

I added a comment; I hope my English is sufficiently clear :D

[Sergio Rius]

Today my rPi gateway (2.1.1 stable) completely stopped working as a service (cli surprisingly worked), I thought that could be some debian update so I switched to devel, but when building it I get this:

LINUX_ARCH_RASPBERRYPI -DMY_PORT=5003 -DMY_RX_MESSAGE_BUFFER_FEATURE -DMY_RF24_IRQ_PIN=18 -Ofast -g -Wall -Wextra -I. -I./core -I./drivers/Linux -I./drivers/BCM -c drivers/BCM/bcm2835.c -o build/drivers/BCM/bcm2835.o
drivers/BCM/bcm2835.c: In function ‘bcm2835_delayMicroseconds’:
drivers/BCM/bcm2835.c:441:40: error: expected ‘)’ before ‘PRIu64’
printf("bcm2835_delayMicroseconds %" PRIu64 "\n", micros);
^
drivers/BCM/bcm2835.c:441:40: warning: spurious trailing ‘%’ in format [-Wformat=]
Makefile:102: recipe for target 'build/drivers/BCM/bcm2835.o' failed
make: *** [build/drivers/BCM/bcm2835.o] Error 1

Is this normal? I used the same configure was working before.

[mfalkvidd]

@Sergio-Rius a fix is available at https://github.com/mysensors/MySensors/pull/983

It is a one line change so you can just add it manually

[Sergio Rius]

Thaaanksss! I'll give it a go :)

[Sergio Rius]

@mfalkvidd Mmmmm... that worked, but now I'm always getting "mysgw: !TSM:INIT:TSP FAIL" as stated avobe. But I'm on development.
Wait, seems that after the 8'th intent it's working. I'll let him go and see.

[Sergio Rius]

I'm afraid that after some time it stops working. I get in Domoticz:

2017-11-12 19:17:01.744 MySensors: trying to connect to: 127.0.0.1:5003
2017-11-12 19:17:02.744 TCP: Connection problem (Unable to connect to specified IP/Port)
2017-11-12 19:17:02.744 TCP: Reconnecting in 30 seconds...

Over and over again.

$ sudo systemctl status mysgw.service
● mysgw.service - MySensors Gateway daemon
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/mysgw.service; enabled)
Active: failed (Result: signal) since dom 2017-11-12 19:16:53 CET; 5min ago
Process: 491 ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/mysgw (code=killed, signal=SEGV)
Main PID: 491 (code=killed, signal=SEGV)
nov 12 19:16:47 Domoticz systemd[1]: Started MySensors Gateway daemon.
nov 12 19:16:48 Domoticz mysgw[491]: Starting gateway...
nov 12 19:16:48 Domoticz mysgw[491]: Protocol version - 2.2.0-rc.1
nov 12 19:16:53 Domoticz systemd[1]: mysgw.service: main process exited, code=killed, status=11/SEGV
nov 12 19:16:53 Domoticz systemd[1]: Unit mysgw.service entered failed state.

But it seems Domoticz being crashing it.
If I do restart the service, Domoticz picks it and works for a while.

2017-11-12 19:24:17.562 TCP: Connection problem (Unable to connect to specified IP/Port)
2017-11-12 19:24:17.562 TCP: Reconnecting in 30 seconds...
2017-11-12 19:24:47.565 TCP: Reconnecting...
2017-11-12 19:24:47.565 MySensors: connected to: 127.0.0.1:5003
2017-11-12 19:24:48.566 MySensors: Gateway Ready...
2017-11-12 19:24:48.566 MySensors: Gateway Version: 2.2.0-rc.1
2017-11-12 19:24:49.566 MySensors: Gateway Version: 2.2.0-rc.1

Is there any further log for exactly seeing what is the crash cause?

EDIT: Also it seems that there's any comunication at all. I only get internal heartbeats on MysController.

[gohan]

Did you get the latest version from development branch?

[Sergio Rius]

@gohan Yep! I exactly ran this command:

git clone https://github.com/mysensors/MySensors.git --branch development && cd MySensors

I'm now powering off my rPi for changing the PA+LNA radio for a standard one and bypassing the power regulator.

EDIT: I've done the above tasks and still getting strange things. It may be Domoticz as:

2017-11-12 19:44:37.634 MySensors: trying to connect to: 127.0.0.1:5003
2017-11-12 19:44:37.638 RFXCOM: Using serial port: /dev/ttyUSB0
2017-11-12 19:44:38.213
2017-11-12 19:44:38.288 Error: RFXCOM: Invalid data received!....
2017-11-12 19:44:38.635 MySensors: connected to: 127.0.0.1:5003
2017-11-12 19:44:38.635 MySensors: Gateway Ready...
2017-11-12 19:44:39.635 MySensors: Gateway Version: 2.2.0-rc.1
2017-11-12 19:44:39.635 MySensors: Gateway Version: 2.2.0-rc.1
...
2017-11-12 20:26:00.153 Error: Scheduler thread seems to have ended unexpectedly
2017-11-12 20:26:00.154 Error: MySGW_NRF hardware (9) thread seems to have ended unexpectedly
2017-11-12 20:26:00.154 Error: RFXCOM hardware (15) thread seems to have ended unexpectedly
2017-11-12 20:26:00.154 Error: RFXCOM hardware (15) nothing received for more than 30 Minutes!....
2017-11-12 20:26:01.155 Error: Restarting: RFXCOM
2017-11-12 20:26:01.707 RFXCOM: Serial Worker stopped...
2017-11-12 20:26:02.722 RFXCOM: Using serial port: /dev/ttyUSB0
2017-11-12 20:26:03.297
2017-11-12 20:26:03.372 Error: RFXCOM: Invalid data received!....
2017-11-12 20:26:16.745 (RFXCOM) Temp + Humidity (Biblioteca [TH])
2017-11-12 20:26:48.745 Error: PROXY: timeout occurred, reconnecting
2017-11-12 20:26:54.716 (MySGW_NRF) Temp (Temp)
2017-11-12 20:26:54.717 (MySGW_NRF) Temp + Humidity (TempHum)
...
and stabilized

[gohan]

If you keep a myscontroller connected to the gateway, does it stays connected or does it get disconnected at the same time as domoticz? Also try to run the gateway from console with debug enabled so you can actually see what it is doing

[alowhum]

Possibly same problem with Domoticz here too. Using a directly attached NRF24 radio to a Raspberry Pi Zero W.

I tried to remake using the latest dev code, and got this error:

gcc -MT build/drivers/BCM/bcm2835.o -MMD -MP -march=armv6zk -mtune=arm1176jzf-s -mfpu=vfp -mfloat-abi=hard -DMY_RADIO_NRF24 -DMY_GATEWAY_LINUX -DMY_DEBUG -DLINUX_SPI_BCM -DLINUX_ARCH_RASPBERRYPI -DMY_PORT=5003 -DMY_RF24_PA_LEVEL=RF24_PA_LOW  -Ofast -g -Wall -Wextra  -I. -I./core -I./drivers/Linux -I./drivers/BCM -c drivers/BCM/bcm2835.c -o build/drivers/BCM/bcm2835.o
drivers/BCM/bcm2835.c: In function ‘bcm2835_delayMicroseconds’:
drivers/BCM/bcm2835.c:441:40: error: expected ‘)’ before ‘PRIu64’
   printf("bcm2835_delayMicroseconds %" PRIu64 "\n", micros);
                                        ^
drivers/BCM/bcm2835.c:441:40: warning: spurious trailing ‘%’ in format [-Wformat=]
Makefile:102: recipe for target 'build/drivers/BCM/bcm2835.o' failed
make: *** [build/drivers/BCM/bcm2835.o] Error 1

// commenting out the problem allowed make to finish:

	//if (debug) {
	//	/* Cant access sytem timers in debug mode */
	//	printf("bcm2835_delayMicroseconds %" PRIu64 "\n", micros);
	//	return;
	//}

This is my config:
./configure --my-transport=nrf24 --my-rf24-pa-level=RF24_PA_LOW --my-gateway=ethernet --my-port=5003