Problem - Data upload stopped (connection with Internet fail

[Joe200]

I'm having problems with my Meteohub version. 12 days ago I've formated my pen where meteohub was installed. Then, I've installed last software version and updates. So far so good. Till some daus ago everything was perfect, the data have been send to wunderground and other places, with no errors or problems.

Some days ago, I remenber that I wake up at 06:00 AM with some "bips" that come from NSLU2. But I was late to work, so I leave home and didn't understand what was the problem.

Later, I have arrived home. When I open the Internet - the page where I can see the data from my weather station - and I saw that data loggind has stopped precisely at 06:00 PM. :huh:

I have checked the led's of NSLU2, and the "READY/STATUS" led was allways flashing. Under that led, the "ETHERNET" led was allways on but without any flashing movement.

I have writed the IP to acess the NSLU2 and put the username and the password in respective fields. I get successfully acess to meteohub. But in the main page was something that caught my attention: I could read "NO INTERNET ACCESS" in red.

I can't understand what's going on, this problem already happened several times (and allways during the dawn!!!!).

I just don't know what to do... This is very strange

I hope you can help me

Regards
Joe

[skyewright]

Some days ago, I remenber that I wake up at 06:00 AM with some "bips" that come from NSLU2.

Which as you probably realise almost certainly means that the NSLU2 rebooted for some reason.

I can't understand what's going on, this problem already happened several times (and allways during the dawn!!!!).

Is the unit on a UPS? Maybe you get regular power spikes around that time, e.g. electric storage heaters switching on or off?

David

[Joe200]

Which as you probably realise almost certainly means that the NSLU2 rebooted for some reason.

Is the unit on a UPS? Maybe you get regular power spikes around that time, e.g. electric storage heaters switching on or off?

David

I don't have any UPS. Maybe you're right, maybe could be some power spike that caused this.

But, I can't understand another thing: why NSLU2 when restarted didn't connect to Internet and continue uploading data?

The WAN IP say "NO INTERNET ACCESS" but I know that's normal.

IP (below MAC) it isn't the same now, he have changed.

And I could see other strange thing: when I enter in meteohub, the "DNS" field (in first page) didn't have any IP, it's blank...

Could this problem be derived from a power spike?

And now what I do to resolve this? It's necessary install everything again? :(

I really need help...

[Joe200]

Which as you probably realise almost certainly means that the NSLU2 rebooted for some reason.

Is the unit on a UPS? Maybe you get regular power spikes around that time, e.g. electric storage heaters switching on or off?

David

Joe200 wrote:
I don't have any UPS. Maybe you're right, maybe could be some power spike that caused this.

But, I can't understand another thing: why NSLU2 when restarted didn't connect to Internet and continue uploading data?

The WAN IP say "NO INTERNET ACCESS" but I know that's normal.

IP (below MAC) it isn't the same now, he have changed.

And I could see other strange thing: when I enter in meteohub, the "DNS" field (in first page) didn't have any IP, it's blank...

Could this problem be derived from a power spike?

And now what I do to resolve this? It's necessary install everything again? :(

I really need help...

I would like to know If compensates spending some money in a UPS. If that resolve my problem, so I'll do that. ;)

But, is there someone that can answer my questions above? :unsure:

[Joe200]

Hi guys.

I have resolved my problem with meteohub.

Anyway... You recommend me to buy an UPS to prevent NSLU2 from power spikes?

Thank you for your help, David.

[d_l]

It doesn't have to be a huge UPS. A minimal 350 VA-sized UPS would be more than adequate. I think that is the smallest size that is sold these days.

A power spike may or may not have caused a reboot on your NSLU2, but a brief power outage will definitely shut down an NSLU2 until you manually power it on with the power button. A small UPS will prevent this sort of power flicker shutdown.

[YJB]

Unless you are suffering from frequent power outages (or when you meteohub is supposed to be mission critical), I would not recommend to use a UPS; it just kills the idea of meteohub being a "green" server solution; Using a UPS will increase you power consumption quite a bit.

[sevenless]

I agree with this sentiment -- you say you "solved" the problem with your NSLU2 (though you didn't tell us what the issue, or solution, turned out to be.)

If it's rebooting or losing its connection consistently at a time like 6:00 on the dot, there are a lot of other plausible solutions that have nothing to do with power spikes (which should be resolved with a proper surge suppressor, anyway...) For instance, the auto-reboot function might be activated. Alternately, your ISP might be resetting your DHCP service at that hour every day, assigning you a new IP address.

If you already have a UPS for other equipment, or have been thinking about one for other nearby equipment, it couldn't hurt to plug the Meteohub into it. Otherwise unless you pinpoint loss-of-power issues as being the cause of the problems you posted the other day I would agree with YJB's sentiments.

[Joe200]

The problem was derived from my DHCP.

I have re-configured network settings again and now meteohub is uploading data correctly.

But this is a strange problem, I remenber that meteohub was working correctly without any problems or errors for 56 days. :blink: :blink:

But when this happens, it happens a lot of times and almost every days (during a period of time that is uncertain). :blink:

NSLU2 did not reset. I have confirmed that because in the first menu (when you enter) said: uptime: 20 days, ... hours ... minutes and this problem happened not more than 5 days ago. :blink:

Now I will wait for a while to see if the same error hapen again, or if nothing happens.

Sevenless, but if you say that my ISP might be resetting my DHCP service at that hour every day, assigning to my computer a new IP address, how can you explain the 56 days without nothing happens? :huh:

It's hard to understand what's going on with my NSLU2...

Thank you for helping me
:)

[skyewright]

Using a UPS will increase you power consumption quite a bit.

Agreed, but some are "hungrier" than others, and there is less of an overall consumption impact if the UPS is serving other purposes too.

Curiously my lowest power consumption overhead UPS is the oldest one I run; it has an overhead slightly under half that of a same brand, similar spec. newer model! :S

David

[speedycactus]

I've had a similar problem twice this month, when my NSLU2 stopped updating to Wunderground. Had to have my neighbor reset my internet connection, as I was away.

Specifically, my ISP in performing routine maintenance had an outage in my area twice this month. In both cases, my router (D-Link) and cable modem (Motorola surfboard) needed to be re-syncd to get the connection going again. Curiously, my neighbor across the street did NOT have to re-sync to restore his connection, so I may have to research his setup. My NSLU2 is connected via ethernet cable to my router.

My biggest gripe (previously mentioned) is the inability of Meteohub to get data from the Davis VP 2 data logger and upload to Wunderground, after my internet service was restored. Most of the other software packages will accomplish this.

Much to my chagrin, I have a few hours of Wunderground data gaps... ;-(

Tom

[sevenless]

Sevenless, but if you say that my ISP might be resetting my DHCP service at that hour every day, assigning to my computer a new IP address, how can you explain the 56 days without nothing happens?

It's hard to understand what's going on with my NSLU2...

I don't think anything is going wrong with your NSLU2. More likely the root problem is between your router and your modem. In my own set up, I've discovered that if the power resets to the modem and router (both on the same power strip), the following steps happen:
1) The modem and router reboot (due to the power cycling.)
2) The router returns to functioning status, and requests the WAN IP and other data from the modem.
3) The modem, meanwhile, is still attempting to re-sync with the ISP, and has no data to provide.
4) If the re-sync is not complete within a short amount of time (e.g. 15 seconds), the router gives up waiting for the WAN IP data and instead assigns itself a generic "no external IP" address (such as 0.0.0.0) and goes about the rest of its tasks, such as assigning internal IP addresses to local clients via DHCP and informing them that there is no WAN IP, and thus no connection with the outside world.
5) Meanwhile, the modem finally re-syncs with the ISP and obtains a WAN IP. Usually a router will keep checking with the modem (at a time interval defined in the DHCP setup) and eventually will discover the outside connection is working.

This notification of connectivity eventually will propagate down to your internal computers and systems as each of them does their regular DHCP re-query (or if they've been rebooted in the meantime), but a few systems (such as the NSLU2) either don't ask for updated data or ask at such slow intervals that they appear to have no connection to the outside world long after your desktop computer will be working properly again.

It's also possible that this is happening because your ISP has started varying the your WAN IP address more frequently (more customers in that netblock maybe means more juggling with DHCP?) and your router is slow to catch up, resulting in a similar scenario to steps 4 and 5 as described above, only with the router having an out-of-date WAN IP address in its memory for a little while. You might be able to test this theory by making note of your external IP address each day and see if it changes, which could rule this out in favor of the first theory.

It's not obvious what the best solution is for your problem, but if it consistently happens in the early morning hours (e.g. at 6 am) you might consider setting up the Meteohub to do a maintenance reboot every day at 6:15 am, which will force it to re-sync with the router and obtain the latest WAN IP data.

[Joe200]

Hi again, guys...

I'm having more problems, but this time, a bit different from the usual...

Yesterday I have a energy brokedown due to a gas leak near home.

Then, when the power back again, I turned on NSLU2. After the usual "bips", It was everything ok - sending data do Internet without any errors or failures.

But when I turned on my computer, I had no acess to Internet. :blink:

I get acess from another computer to meteohub and had discovered the problem: meteohub has the same IP that my computer...

Now, I have two IP's acessing the meteohub, the usual 192.168.1.77 and the IP of my computer...

How can I resolve this? Can I set up network settings on meteohub again, writing 192.168.1.77 in the respective field to try to see if everything returns to normal?

And can I always keep the usual IP (192.168.1.77) on meteohub so this not happen again? :(

Regards
Joe

[d_l]

Perhaps you need to assign a static IPs to your computers or set the DHCP server in your router(?) to exclude the 192.168.1.77 IP from its IP pool (or set that IP to be outside of the pool). That way your computers will never be assigned 192.168.1.77.

[Joe200]

Perhaps you need to assign a static IPs to your computers or set the DHCP server in your router(?) to exclude the 192.168.1.77 IP from its IP pool (or set that IP to be outside of the pool). That way your computers will never be assigned 192.168.1.77.

So you are saying to me that if I do what you say, my meteohub will have always the 192.168.1.77 IP and will not suffer more changes?

And If I exclude 192.168.1.77 from the pool, what will happen?

Sorry this questions, but I am a little confused with this. :unsure:

Thank you for your help
Joe