On a R Pi 3B+, I upgraded from piaware v 6 something to 8 something, and immediately hit stability problems. It is now on 9.0.1. It runs OK for a few days, then stops seeing aircraft until a reboot. A restart of pi-aware from the Site Configuration’ dashboard does not fix the problem - I need to SSH in and reboot the pi.
Before the upgrade it would run for months without problems.
Piaware-status when it’s not seeing aircraft looks like this:
PiAware master process (piaware) is running with pid 22337.
PiAware ADS-B client (faup1090) is not running.
PiAware ADS-B UAT client (faup978) is not running (disabled by configuration settings)
PiAware mlat client (fa-mlat-client) is not running.
Local ADS-B receiver (dump1090) is not running.
no program appears to be listening for ES connections on port 30005.
faup1090 is NOT connected to the ADS-B receiver.
piaware is connected to FlightAware.
got ‘couldn’t open socket: connection refused’
dump1090 is NOT producing data on localhost:30005.
pi@piaware:~ $ sudo journalctl -u dump1090-fa -n 10 | sed 's/ / /'
-- Journal begins at Wed 2022-12-14 23:30:05 UTC, ends at Sun 2024-02-04 12:38:06 UTC. --
Feb 04 11:49:08 piaware systemd[1]: Started dump1090 ADS-B receiver (FlightAware customization).
Feb 04 11:49:08 piaware dump1090-fa[1700]: Sun Feb 4 11:49:08 2024 UTC dump1090-fa 9.0~bpo11+1 starting up.
Feb 04 11:49:08 piaware dump1090-fa[1700]: rtlsdr: using device #0: Generic RTL2832U (Realtek, RTL2832U, SN 00001000)
Feb 04 11:49:09 piaware dump1090-fa[1700]: Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Feb 04 11:49:09 piaware dump1090-fa[1700]: rtlsdr: tuner gain set to about 58.6 dB (gain step 29) (tuner AGC enabled)
Feb 04 11:49:09 piaware dump1090-fa[1700]: adaptive: using 50% duty cycle
Feb 04 11:49:09 piaware dump1090-fa[1700]: adaptive: enabled adaptive gain control with gain limits 0.0dB (step 0) .. 58.6dB (step 29)
Feb 04 11:49:09 piaware dump1090-fa[1700]: adaptive: enabled dynamic range control, target dynamic range 30.0dB
Feb 04 11:49:09 piaware dump1090-fa[1700]: Allocating 4 zero-copy buffers
Feb 04 11:49:19 piaware dump1090-fa[1700]: adaptive: reached upper gain limit, halting dynamic range scan here
The dump1090-fa logs show it is working perfectly well, but in your earlier post piaware log says no program is producing data on port 30005. Very strange.
We can check if beast data is available on port 30005 or not
sudo apt install netcat
Note: If above cmmand responds asking for choice, choose netcat traditional
nc 127.0.0.1 30005
If dump1090-fa is outputting beast data on port 30005, then bove command will result in continuous flow of strange characters.
To break the flow and get back command prompt, press Ctrl and C Keys together.
sudo apt install netcat
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
netcat
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 112 not upgraded.
Need to get 9728 B of archives.
After this operation, 16.4 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://www.flightaware.com/mirror/raspbian/raspbian bullseye/main armhf netcat all 1.10-46 [9728 B]
Fetched 9728 B in 3s (3868 B/s)
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
LANGUAGE = (unset),
LC_ALL = (unset),
LC_CTYPE = "UTF-8",
LANG = "en_GB.UTF-8"
are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to a fallback locale ("en_GB.UTF-8").
locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory
Selecting previously unselected package netcat.
(Reading database ... 50901 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../netcat_1.10-46_all.deb ...
Unpacking netcat (1.10-46) ...
Setting up netcat (1.10-46) ...
I was just writing that the nc command produced nothing, when I saw a ‘1’ appear. Not a string of strange characters, but a series of '1’s at maybe 60 second intervals
dongle is not properly / firmly inserted into usb port - unplug and replug it firmly
the usb port is defective - try another usb port
if you are using a usb extender cable to connect dongle to Pi, remove that cable and insert dongle directly into usb port, or use another extender cable
dump1090-fa software is corrupted - purge it and re-install it
I just did another reboot and now nc is sending a stream of strange characters - so it does not seem likely that it’s a simple hardware problem. Thanks again for your help
You can do the rtl test without being there but remember to restart piaware and dump1090-fa after the test.
i.e. sudo systemctl start piaware dump1090-fa
It’s also super easy to uninstall and reinstall dump1090-fa via ssh.
I’d sudo systemctl stop dump1090-fa then sudo apt purge dump1090-fa
Then I like to sudo reboot just in case and then reinstall dunp1090-fa.
If the rtl test shows the dongle it still can be a hardware thing. I had a dying dongle that would intermittently connect and disconnect from the machine even though it was untouched. But if you don’t see a dongle with the rtl test you know it’s either unplugged or dead.
