B402 Eval Kit Via Ethernet: Losing Cloud Connection (but remains breathing cyan)

[AJBarry]

Hi all!

Today I got my B402 Evaluation kit connected to Particle Cloud via Ethernet using the Android App.

Everything is apparently working 100% as I can ping/signal and call custom events just fine. I can also build and flash firmware OTA using Particle Build.

I am however seeing repeatable dropouts (100% of the time) if I don’t call anything on the device over a period of 3-5 minutes. The RGB led remains breathing cyan but the device will not respond to pings/functions. Power cycling will fix this temporarily.

I stripped code down to the following and am still seeing the same issue. This has been both compiled for target Boron 1.4.4 , and flashed, using the Particle Build online IDE.

Would love some assistance, as this is a real annoyance for development!

Regards,
Alex

[no1089]

Hi Alex,

Quite a few changes to the Ethernet functions have been implemented in DeviceOS 1.5.0-rc.1/2 - can you compile to these versions and check again?

[AJBarry]

I tried last night but have awoken to an SOS state which I’m trying to recover from now…

[rickkas7]

The B402 even over Ethernet uses UDP to communicate with the Particle cloud. It sends a packet to the Particle cloud servers, which causes your network router to create a temporary port mapping back to the device. Since these are a finite resource your router will eventually discard the back-channel to the device, which breaks the cloud connectivity, but the device cannot tell that the back-channel is gone until it sends data again, which by default happens every 23 minutes.

The solution is to adjust the keep-alive for your network. Add this to setup to have a packet sent to the cloud every 2 minutes to make sure your router does not discard the port-forwarded back-channel when using Ethernet.

Particle.keepAlive(120);

[AJBarry]

Thank you Rikkas, as soon as I get the module working again I will test this and report back

[AJBarry]

@no1089

After firmware update I get SOS (1 blink between) every time I enable ETHERNET.
I will have to attempt to revert as I've spent 3 hours troubleshooting this so far to no avail.

The latest sketch I have been flashing to test is attached at the bottom of this reply.

B402 Stuck after Firmware Upgrade

Hey thanks for that ScruffR, I had accidentally copied out the wrong script from that thread. Okay so using the corrected sketch (below) allowed me to get serial transmitting. #include "Particle.h" #include "dct.h" SYSTEM_MODE(SEMI_AUTOMATIC); void setup() { // This clears the setup done flag on brand new devices so it won't stay in listening mode const uint8_t val = 0x01; dct_write_app_data(&val, DCT_SETUP_DONE_OFFSET, 1); // This is just so you know the operation is complet…

EDIT: Reverting to 1.4.4 fixed SOS issue, so it seems to me that 1.5.0-r.c.2 perhaps has an issue with ethernet

#include "Particle.h"

SYSTEM_MODE(MANUAL);

// ENABLING FEATURE_ETHERNET_DETECTION CAUSES SOS, DISABLING FIXES
// STARTUP(System.enableFeature(FEATURE_ETHERNET_DETECTION));  // < this causes SOS
STARTUP(System.disableFeature(FEATURE_ETHERNET_DETECTION));    // < this works

boolean connectToCloud = false;

void setup() {
    Serial.begin();
    delay(5000);
    Serial.println("setup()");
}

void loop() {
    delay(1000);
    
    Serial.println("loop()");
    Particle.process();
    delay(1000);
    
    Particle.process();
    
    if(connectToCloud && Particle.connected() == false) {
        Serial.println("attempt connect");
        Particle.connect();
        connectToCloud = false;
    } else {
        Serial.println("connected");
    }
    
    Serial.println("end loop()");
    
}

[no1089]

I might be conflating issues here, but what you are seeing in 1.5.0-rc.2 sounds reminiscent of this PR:https://github.com/particle-iot/device-os/pull/2057 - although that is for the B5SOM.

[AJBarry]

It does sound like the outcomes are the same in terms of SOS, though I don’t have the time to check out potential fixes at this stage.

[no1089]

This has been merged and should be released today with DeviceOS 1.5, so keep an eye out and test once it is out if you can.

– Edit –
DeviceOS 1.5 has been released. Please try it and report back

[AJBarry]

@no1089 So I have just tried and confirmed working ethernet on 1.5 now.

The only issue at this stage however is that I’ve been forced to rerun the Particle Set-Up (via Android app) in order to get it to work. Disabling and enabling ethernet programmatically has only worked AFTER initially configuring the bsom via the app.

Is this a known issue or something I’m missing?