System hangs/freezes after exactly 24 hrs

FlightAware ADS-B Flight Tracking
1

I am a newbie running a Rasp Pi 4 2Gb with a Pro stick and flight aware 3.8.1 and dump1090-fa. It is a new system and nothing else is running. I normally connect to pi over wifi using VNC viewer or Putty. The system works well but it seems to freeze after exactly 24 hrs give or take a minute or so. After the freeze I cant connect by VNC or Putty. The Pi aware map web page gives the following error-
Problem fetching data from dump1090. AJAX call failed (timeout: timeout). Maybe dump1090 is no longer running?
The displayed map data will be out of date.

I need to disconnect power and restart and all is well for another 24 hrs.

I have checked SD card is seated, the power supply is genuine Raspberry, the Pi is on a fixed IP address. I was about to try a full reinstall of all software and try running over a wired connection , as I dont know if this is a wifi issue or hardware/software problem. I thought it was worth asking in case anyone knows if there may be another reason for this as it happens every 24 hours exactly?

2

I would be suspicious about this. A 24 hour timeout sounds very like a DHCP lease expiring to me.

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3

Thanks for the suggestion. I have checked my router settings and the ip address is definitely reserved, but I think you have cracked it!

I have 2 Pi’s one dedicated to Pi-hole, and the other one with the problem, running Piaware and dump1090-fa only. Both show as reserved in my router table however, I forgot I am using a Pi as a DHCP server. I checked the Pi-hole settings and leases renew every 24 hrs. I have assigned a static lease now on Pi-hole control panel. Hopefully SOLVED.

Thanks for the help.

4

You could possibly be encountering a dhcpcd bug mentioned here: PiAware won't reconnect to wifi network if it drops off (warning, long and confusing thread, it took a while to work out exactly what was breaking)

… which is related to dhcpcd attempting to defend the assignment of its configured IP (perhaps in this case because the DHCP server has reused the IP elsewhere) and then crashing.

I’m not sure what sdcard image you started from. The piaware sdcard image includes a fixed dhcpcd package, but I don’t think the bugfix has made it into the upstream Raspbian images yet, so maybe that’s the cause of things going bad.

5

I think you may be right. The Pi froze again this evening.

The Pi came with an SD, NOOBS preinstalled, containing Raspbian. I installed dump1090-fa and Piaware following instructions on this website. I have had a quick look at the thread but it is mostly beyond me. A Piaware sdcard image with the fix looks like the best bet.

I assume all I need to do is follow the instructions in sections 2 and 3 here?

Thanks

6

Yep, that’s right. You may also want to set feeder-id in piaware-config.txt so that data is fed to your existing site.

7

Thats me up and running with a piaware SD card image. I have updated the feeder id to my existing site. I have also reserved the IP address to the Pi-hole server.

Hopefully in 24 hrs I am still up and running!

8

I am watching for your results with interest as I think I have the DHCP problem as well. I have resisted doing the SD card image rebuild so far but am beginning to think that it is in my future…

9

Well, it has been over 36 hours now and my system is still running. I think I must have had the DHCP bug mentioned above. Hopefully it will make it into the next update of Raspbian.

Thanks for the help.

10

Typical. I spoke too soon. The system froze again about an hour ago. I have restarted but if it happens again, will move to a wired connection to try out.

11

Set a static IP address on the Pi instead of setting a reserved one on the router. DHCP won’t be involved at all.

12

While there is no DHCP on the wire, dhcpcd still manages the interface even in static IP mode.

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13

I don’t use the piaware image so is that something specific to it?

14

It is specific to any Raspbian-based install. See Raspberry Pi Documentation - Configuration

15

Ha! I didn’t know that. That’s unfortunate.

16

My Pi aware has just stopped again with the same problem. I am thinking of connecting it to another wifi network. I have an old Netgear router which I could set up and connect my Pi to it wirelessly. Not sure if it will make a difference. It will be a pain changing networks back and forth but better than nothing. Will let you know how it goes.

17

I am having the same type of problems. I am interested in what you might find out…

18

Well, my system is up and running. A few things have changed (unplanned!) so I am not sure which change has resulted in the fix.

  1. I have upgraded to Piaware 4.0. This upgrade contained a bug fix related to dhcpcd so this may have resolved the problem.

  2. I am running my Pi aware on another router hardwired from my main router.

  3. I also have temporarily stopped pi-hole on my network and returned to default router settings.

Over the next few days I will reinstate things to find out if the upgrade to v4.0 has resolved my problems.

19

I have also upgraded to 4.0. Unfortunately during the last two consecutive overnights my system has stopped displaying aircraft on SkyAware but continued to send data to FA via feeder. I also check my router log and do not find anything in it that indicates that internet connectivity was compromised over the two days. I am interested in your results…

20

Everything is still working well without faults after two weeks or so. I am running my Pi wirelessly to a second Netgear router which is hard wired to my main Vrgin Media (VM) router. The IP of the Netgear router is reserved on the VM router and the Pi IP address is reserved on the Netgear router. It is a bit messy but it works!