[Solved] MySensors 2.0 Ethernet gateway (ENC28J60) restart / IP issue

[Yveaux]

@intellium with w5100 we currently face an issue, causing the arduino to reset, caused by a bug in the avr gcc tool chain.
Until fixed in the tool chain and adopted by arduino there is not much more than trial and error to see if it runs stable. Reverting arduino ide won't help either, because this bug has been in for a long time.
I'm not saying this is what is happening to you, but it just might.

[intellium]

@Yveaux Hmm, thats annoying. So, if I'm experiencing this issue, I'm basically S.O.L. ? :(

[tekka]

@intellium The avr toolchain bug is related to variadic arguments used for debug prints. If you comment MY_DEBUG, do you still have the issue?

[intellium]

@tekka You sir, are my new best friend :)

Sure enough, disabling the debug and uploading the code seems to make everything work. The gateway outputs the correct IP and is now pingable !

[tekka]

@intellium excellent :) Have fun

[TheoL]

@intellium @Tekka is actually the best friend for most of us ;-)

[tekka]

@TheoL haha, that's the MySensors spirit :sparkles:

[intellium]

May have spoken to soon....

Although the gateway now runs, after a few mins it seems to die. LAN leds keep blinking everything seems in order, but it's not pingable anymore and Domoticz starts logging messages that the gateway is unreachable. Is this somehow related? Or is this a whole different issue?

@tekka probably knows what to do, right? :D

[tekka]

@intellium can you add a serial print in loop() to see if the GW or the lan module freezes?

[intellium]

@tekka Sorry it took a while.

I gave it a try, but ever since adding print statements to the gateway loop(), the sensor nodes stopped communicating with it given FPAR failures. Even when I remove the print statements and return to the previous state, it keeps on giving FPAR failures on all sensor nodes... What would cause this ?

[tekka]

@intellium hmm, hard to diagnose without additional information - could be power-related. Can you add a better/stronger power-supply?

[intellium]

@tekka Before I go the route of messing with the power supply, I did some fiddling...

I added the following statements to both the gateway and the sensor sketches:

//LOW POWER MODE RADIO
#define MY_RF24_PA_LEVEL RF24_PA_LOW

//DEBUG FOR RADIO
#define MY_DEBUG_VERBOSE_RF24

//RADIO THROUGHPUT
#define MY_RF24_DATARATE RF24_1MBPS

Next I put them a little bit closer together (around 80cm apart). The FPAR:FAIL message are gone now. I see in the output on the Sensor node that it communicates with the gateway. Currently, the gateway is running with this setup and the controller (Domoticz) gets values. So this seems to be working OK.

However, on the sensor node, the log sometimes indicates an error. Something like this :

RF24:write register, reg=0, value=14
RF24:open writing pipe, recipient=0
RF24:write register, reg=10, value=0
RF24:write register, reg=16, value=0
RF24:send message to 0, len=12
RF24:flushTX
RF24:write register, reg=7, value=48
RF24:MAX_RT
RF24:flushTX
RF24:start listening
RF24:write register, reg=0, value=15
RF24:write register, reg=10, value=1
!TSP:MSG:SEND 1-1-0-0 s=1,c=1,t=0,pt=7,l=5,sg=0,ft=4,st=fail:29.0
T: 29.00
RF24:write register, reg=0, value=12
RF24:power down
RF24:write register, reg=0, value=12
RF24:power down
RF24:stop listening
RF24:write register, reg=0, value=14
RF24:open writing pipe, recipient=0
RF24:write register, reg=10, value=0
RF24:write register, reg=16, value=0
RF24:send message to 0, len=12
RF24:flushTX
RF24:write register, reg=7, value=48
RF24:start listening
RF24:write register, reg=0, value=15
RF24:write register, reg=10, value=1
TSP:MSG:SEND 1-1-0-0 s=0,c=1,t=1,pt=7,l=5,sg=0,ft=5,st=ok:36.0
H: 36.00
RF24:write register, reg=0, value=12
RF24:power down

From what I've read, the st:fail means there was an error transmitting the value. Could this still be power related ? It seems so intermittent to me that my gut tells me power isn't the issue.

[intellium]

@tekka Next I tried is adding a capacitor to both the gateway and node RF module. I added a 10uF capacitor to both of them. This seems to have stabilized RF communication. I'm not seeing any failures anymore and data is flowing...

Back to the original issue... The gateway that seems to die...

I've added some debug statements to the loop() to see if this would keep on running when the gateway seemingly dies.
After 2 hours of operation, the gateway stopped responding to pings, and the controller also noticed the gateway was not alive anymore. When this happens, the output of the serial console is :

New loop iteration: 21734
New loop iteration: 21735
New loop iteration: 21736
New loop iteration: 21737
New loop iteration: 21738
New loop iteration: 21739
New loop iteration: 21740
New loop iteration: 21741
New loop iteration: 21742
New loop iteration: 21743
New loop iteration: 21744

As you can see, my loop code keeps on running at this point, suggesting it's just the ENC interface thats no longer reachable or has an issue. When I close and re-open the serial port monitor from the Arduino IDE, the gateway springs back to life and everything starts working again.

[intellium]

The next run it only took 20 mins. before the gateway stopped responding....

[tekka]

@intellium Issues with ENC: https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=398258.0

sounds pretty much the same...

[intellium]

@tekka Yeah, I was afraid of that....

I think I might just build a serial gateway and use that for Domoticz as those seem a lot more stable. Then when I find a good source for a w5100 module, I'll get some of those for building an ethernet gateway.

[intellium]

Just a little update:

I build a serial gateway and attached it to Domoticz. Been working ever since, even during the night. Guess this is the way to go for now.

[tekka]

@intellium Sounds good - fyi, I'm using both, W5100 and ESP8266-based GWs, w/o issues.

[intellium]

@tekka I've got a bunch of esp8266 modules laying around. Maybe I'll just search how to wire those up to my nano's and find some code to run it as a dedicated gateway / sensor node. I've noticed the site uses a NodeMCU board for this instead of an Arduino (Nano) ?

[GizMoCuz]

Having the exact issue as the OP, but then with a W5100 shield and a NRF24.
Reverting back to MySensors 1.5.4 solves the problem.
Now i was on a beta of 2.0 that i uploaded to the gateway quite some time ago, and this worked without issues
Something has changed in the final 2.0 release... and i want to revert that change ;)