New firmware release 1.7.6.b1

[jellium]

@jmarcelino Thanks for the pieces of information.

Note that a call of LoRa(mode=LoRa.LORAWAN, adr=True, device_class=LoRa.CLASS_A) for instance reinitializes the frame counter. So, besides the encryption keys to communicate, part of the stored LoRaWAN context is lost or overwritten. So care must be taken not to redefine the LoRa object after a deepsleep or power cycle, in order not to reset some of the LoRaWAN context. Am I right?

Edit: it seems inconsistent to me not to redefine the LoRa object used for the "first" join, after a deepsleep or a power cycle. If one does not redefine this object, one cannot check whether the LoPy "has joined" the network. However, as I said above, reinitializing this object, at least, resets the uplink frame counter. Furthermore, if I sequentially send a frame, recall the LoRa constructor, send a frame, and so on, I only see downlinks in (Objenious) network backend, with increasing counter, but no uplink.

[peekay123]

Running an SD test on LoPy / Expansion board with firmware 1.7.6.b1 causes the LoPy to hang after an inconsistent number of cycles. This test ran flawlessly on 1.7.5.b2.

import machine
import os
import utime
import gc
from machine import SD

sd = SD()
os.mount(sd, '/sd')

# check the content
os.listdir('/sd')

f = open('/sd/test', 'a')
t1 = utime.ticks_ms()
ttot = 0
n = 0
print("Starting")
while n < 300000:
#   initializing buffer
    k = bytearray(1024)
#   write buffer and flush to file
    f.write(k)
    f.flush()
    t2 = utime.ticks_ms()
#	calculate running average
    ttot = (ttot + (t2 - t1)) /2
    gc.collect()
    n += 1
#    print("Round", n, ", ", ttot, "ms \n\r", end="")
    t1 = utime.ticks_ms()
    if n%1000 == 0:
        print("Rounds ", n, "\r", nend="")

print("\n\rRounds", n, ", avg ", ttot, "ms \n\r", end="")

[this.wiederkehr]

@peekay123: Just raised a hand for help in the espressif forums about the bug with the sd-card.

See here: https://www.esp32.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2421

Looks like a memory corruption bug, where some pointer gets overwritten due to an out-of-bounds access.

Unfortunatly I'm working with 1.7.5b2 sources as 1.7.6.b1 sources are still not available...

[johncaipa]

Hi, Now I have the following messages:
NVS error=4354

Does anyone know what it means?

[robert-hh]

@peekay123 I run a similar test with every build since @this-wiederkehr raised that issue with version 1.7.3.b1. No luck. It may run very long, up to 600000 cycles on one run, a few thousand on the next. But it's still not stable.

[jellium]

@jellium Has anyone found a solution for this issue? I cannot find in the sources where the keys are handled and written in the flash during the first join() method call. I believe it's somewhere in the LoRa constructor but the Python language merged in C is not easily readable for me.

Thanks!
It's the only "bug" I see left on the optimization of LoRaWAN and deepsleep together.

[jmarcelino]

@jellium
The source on github hasn't been updated to 1.7.6 yet

[jcaron]

The LoRaWAN frame counters storage in NVS doesn't seem to work as intended when combined with deep sleep (tried with both 1.7.6.b1 and the new 1.7.7.b1): the uplink frame counter restarts at 1 after each sleep... Not sure if that's because the counter is not properly stored, not properly read, or reset in the process?

The only thing I do after wake up is:

lora = LoRa(mode=LoRa.LORAWAN)
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_LORA, socket.SOCK_RAW)
s.setsockopt(socket.SOL_LORA, socket.SO_DR, 0)
s.send(bytes([1]));

Even though lora isn't used, if I don't include the Lora() initialiser, socket throws an error (OSError: Network card not available), not sure if that call resets the counter (I would expect only the join to do so)?

I even added a 2-second sleep after sending just to make sure the packet is actually sent, just in case the NVS storage is done only once the packet has finished sending, no change.

Is there a way to check what is stored in NVRAM, using pycom.nvs_get() for instance?

Thanks,

Jacques.

[jellium]

@jcaron Hello, I cannot provide an answer to the problem you are reporting but in case you haven't read it, I draw your attention on the similar issue that I am reporting in this present thread on this and that posts.
Edit: my bad, I see that you have read the post indeed :)

[jcaron]

@jellium @daniel OK, so I dug a bit in the code and added a few traces, and the conclusion is that:

• there are actually two instances of the counters being reset: right from the init of the board (in TASK_LoRa, which calls LoRaMacStoreUpAndDownLinkCountersInNvs), and a second one in the LoRa constructor, which calls LoRaMacInitialization which in turn calls ResetMacParameters. Both will save the counters with their default values before they have been read from NVS.

• the TASK_LoRa is actually an infinite loop running all the time, whether LoRa is actually running or configured or not!

I'll try to find how this could be resolved, but I won't mind if someone who is more familiar with the code does it first or has any pointers!

BTW, the code on GitHub has the wrong version number, is there anything else that would have missed the commit?

[soren]

@jcaron hi, has this been fixed i wonder? i get "network card not available" right now, and i'm not using lora. don't need to.

[jmarcelino]

@soren said in New firmware release 1.7.6.b1:

network card not available

Can you post the code you’re trying to use, or at least the part where you setup the network / socket?

[soren]

@jmarcelino yes, of course. It's the part where I'm using the socket that is commented out right now:

import machine
from machine import UART
from network import WLAN
#from network import LoRa
#lora = LoRa(mode=LoRa.LORAWAN)
#from machine import SD
import socket
#import ssl
#import time
import os
import pycom
print('starting up..')
#sd = SD()
#os.mount(sd, '/sd')
#time.sleep(5)
#os.listdir('/sd')
#time.sleep(5)

uart = UART(0, 115200)
os.dupterm(uart)
pycom.heartbeat(False)
pycom.rgbled(0x7f0000) # red

wlan = WLAN()
#print('SD mounted!')
if machine.reset_cause() != machine.SOFT_RESET:
    print('setting wlan config...')
    wlan.init(mode=WLAN.STA)
    wlan.ifconfig(config=('10.0.0.88', '255.255.255.0', '10.0.0.1', '8.8.8.8'))

if not wlan.isconnected():
    print('looking for network...')
    wlan.connect('NETGEAR64', auth=(WLAN.WPA2, 'oddchair195'), timeout=5000)
    while not wlan.isconnected():
        machine.idle()
print('connected to wifi!')

#s = socket.socket()
#ss = ssl.wrap_socket(s)
#ss.connect(socket.getaddrinfo('www.google.com', 443)[0][-1])
#print('connected to internet!')


space = os.getfree('/flash')
print('free flash mem: ', space)
pycom.rgbled(0x007f00) # green