Connection Stability - Core and Photon with Google OnHub router

Troubleshooting
1

Hello all,

Is there any one in the community using Core or Photon with TP-Link Google OnHub router ?

I am using Core and Photon with OnHub. It seems to be connection is not completely stable. Now and then (at least once a day) they disconnect from could and reconnect.

-> Interestingly both of them do not disconnect at the same time. Photon is more stable compared to Core. When Core is disconnected Photon is still connected to the cloud. This means there is not issues with the internet connection as such.

-> When Core alone disconnects from the cloud. It almost does not reconnect some times until I restart the router. Its either blinking Green or Breathing Green. But Photon is still connected.

-> Sometimes Photon alone disconnects from cloud.

-> Both Core and Photon are connected to Blynk cloud also. I planning to monitor both the device with Tinker SW in few days.

I have also done deep update for Core. Is anyone facing similar issue. ?
I do not know if this is issue with the firmware or with the router or anything else ?

Any tips to troubleshoot and fix the issue are welcome.

Thank you.

2

Doing something like this will help with automatic reconnection without resetting the device - https://github.com/kennethlimcp/particle-examples/blob/master/wifi-auto-reconnect/wifi-auto-reconnect.ino

3

@kennethlimcp thanks for the hint and the link. I will give it a try.

4

Mine used to have a lot more trouble than it does now. I had a pretty low RSSI, so I moved the router a bit until I got it as high as I could. It had less disconnects, but still pretty bad until I changed to a channel that was used less. Actually automatic works great. More routers are always popping up, causing more interference.

5

I guess mine was also a problem with the WiFi operating channel. Using a WiFi analyzer I found the WiFi Channel of the router is 11. I guess Core can not connect to network with channel number greater than 11, but 11 should be find I guess.

@kennethlimcp I had the similar situation today, Photon is till connected but Core has trouble connecting, it connects to cloud and disconnects continuously. I did a power reset of Core several times (turn off, wait few secs and power it again) still Core could not connect to Cloud. In this situation with the above piece of code still help …?

6

That depends… Is the core blinking cyan or green?

7

@kennethlimcp Its actually combination
-> Some times Core is blinking only Green and some times breathing Green. Yes breathing Green

-> Some times its Blinking Green-> Breathing Cyan -> Blinking Green. In this case its connecting to Cloud and disconnecting. This repeats frequently until few hours before the connection is stable with Cloud. I have also created a IFTTT recipe to monitor the status of connects. I have bunch of notifications “Core is Online” immediately “Core went offline” and so on…

Now I have moved all my application SW (RF24 + Blynk based) to Photon and flashed Core with Tinker to monitor the connections stability. It has be around 2 days until now and Core already lost connection once. Photon seems to be still okay.

Some times on Core I see continuous blinking RED before the connection is stable; No SoS flashing. I think blinking Red is failure in connecting to cloud. I dont know what is happening here.

8

Breathing green means connected to the WiFi network but not the cloud. Did you use the code that i shared above to maintain :cloud: connection?

As for the repeated cycle, my guess is that the CC3000 is acting up. Your best bet it to try a CC3000 patch and see if the problem goes away. However, if your load tinker firmware and everything works well, we will need to examine your code and see what is causing the issue.

Blinking red + cyan means it is unable to connect to the :cloud: due to no internet connection. I presume that your internet is stable?

I feel the frustration when things doesn’t work smoothly. Might not have a best solution but happy to help as much as i can :wink:

9

@kennethlimcp Thanks for your help.

I have not yet tried the code you shared. I want to first understand what is happening with my devices. Understand a bit of root cause for the failure. Then try your code to maintain the cloud connect.

I recently moved to OnHub router and have these problems. With my old router I had different problems :wink:

I remember I did CC3000 patch, I am pretty sure I did deep update. I guess the deep update includes patch for CC33000.

My internet connection is for sure stable. Because when Core is having these problems, Photon is still connected to the Cloud :wink:

At the moment looks like my applications SW on Photon is stable. Core with tinker has dropped connection only once. But unfortunately I do not know the LED status when the connection dropped. I guess I have to wait for few more days to see the connection status.

Thanks a lot for your support and help.

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