Powerup Problems

[ha...@planet.nl]

Hi Steve,
Since a couple of days I experience a serious problem with starting up the HL2. In my setup I use a Laptop, Windows10 and Thetis. When I powerup the HL2 it is not recognized by the software. Leds CLK, IP and SPD are flashing and HW lights up continous. Thetis reacts by 'Error starting SDR hardware, is it connected and powered?' The only way I can force the HL2 to be recognized by the software is to force a Factory Image Reboot. After this HL2 forced reboot Thetis starts up  and functions as normal again till HL2 is powered off. Problem is I have to repeat this reboot procedure for every time I startup the HL2.
Could you please give me some help to recover from this nasty problem.
Hans, PA0HRP

[Roger David Powers]

> Leds CLK, IP and SPD are flashing and HW lights up continous. 

CLK flashing:  HL2 is in Idle Mode (software not connected): Ethernet PHY is seeing 25 MHz clock

IP flashing in Idle mode:  HL2 IP address assignment succeeded via fixed IP or APIPA which is attempted if DCHP fails in the first 15 seconds after powerup

SPD flashing in Idle mode:   100  Mbps link established

HW continuous in Idle mode: Radio subsystem (AD9866 device) is operational and its clock frequency is verified

So, it seems the HL2 side is happy.  Ethernet link is up, radio is online, IP address is assigned but since IP is flashing it did not get the address from DHCP, it got it from using a fixed IP assigned to the device earlier, or it fell back to the APIPA address.  

How do you expect the HL2 to obtain its IP address?  If it is via DCHP, it is not working that way, because the IP LED is flashing not fixed.  It seems to be using a fixed address assigned earlier, or it seems to not be getting the DHCP response so is falling back to using APIPA addressing i.e. 169.254.19.221 with netmask 255.255.0.0.

I'm not sure why booting from factory image works better.  Maybe this bypasses the fixed IP?  Maybe the "live" gateware has a bug and using the factory gateware fixes that bug?

There was an interesting discussion at https://groups.google.com/g/hermes-lite/c/2wnmv3BNMdE/m/FmgFV9y5AQAJ  which talks about someone having similar symptoms.

Also https://github.com/softerhardware/Hermes-Lite2/wiki/Software says:

A unique MAC for each Hermes-Lite 2.0 is required if you have multiple units on the same network. Quisk allows you to write a new MAC into an EEPROM. You may also set a static IP, but the preferred method is to have you DHCP server assign a static IP based on the MAC.

It seems to be time to have a "I can't ping my HL2" entry in our FAQ, or in a Troubleshooting page on the wiki?

Regards,

RDP

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[Steve Haynal]

Hi Hans,

Please boot with the factory image and then use SparkSDR, Quisk or hermeslite.py to make sure no fixed IP is set for your HL2. Clear the fixed IP if set. I think there are some notes on how to do this on the wiki or this list, but I can't find them easily. Once you find the right GUI window in SparkSDR or Quisk, it is pretty intuitive what needs to be done.

73,

Steve

kf7o

[ha...@planet.nl]

Hi Steve,
Few days ago I've asked for your help with my HL2-starting up problems. Although I can see you are a very busy by answerring questions and solving problems in our HL2 group, you and Roger David responded immediately by giving  me some guidelines to help me getting normal HL2 start-up on the line again. I have spent much time on trying out most of the suggestions and guidelines you and Roger David have reffered to, unfortunately without any success. I am fairly new to sdr and I have a limited knowledge of data communications. A couple of months  ago my HL2 was delivered. I am very impressed by the HL2 in combination with the Thetis software. This combination worked like a charm till a couple of days ago. Unfortunately now I am limited to startup the HL2 everytime first by giving a hard firmware reset. I do not know what could have caused the startup problem. May be it could have been a sudden power disconnection at the wrong moment. Reffering to your latest post in our HL2 group I can fully understand you do not want to spent your valuabel time on problems caused by experiments or fooling around with the Original HL2 hardware as delivered by Makerfabs or any software related experiments. I am very impressed by the capabilities of the HL2 as it is and ofcourse by all the enthousiastic collegue amateurs supporting this HL2 group. Cause I suspect a corrupted HL2 firmware, my question is do you have a simple solution (without using software like SparkSDR or Quisk etc.) to load the original and latest firmware (as implemented by Makerfabs) again in the HL2? May be by using a hardware- or softwareprogrammer. On Youtube I found a three years old but very instructive presentation but things and links have drastically changed since. A final solution could be to send the board back to Makerfabs? I would very much appriceate when you again could give some guidance and help to get my problem solved. Please accept my excuse for this circumstantial explanation of my problem.
73, Hans, PA0HRP

Op maandag 1 maart 2021 om 20:18:04 UTC+1 schreef softerh...@gmail.com:

[Matthew]

Hi Hans,

From your description it sounds more likely a networking issue rather than HL2 hardware/gateware related.

How do you connect the HL2 to your network? Do you plug it into a router, or direct to a PC? Do you know if you have a DHCP server running on your network?

I would strongly suggest trying SparkSDR to investigate your problem further. This is much simpler than re-programming the FPGA. Please report back if you manage to get SparkSDR to discover the HL2 at all and what IP address it is using.

73 Matthew M5EVT.

[Matthew]

Hi Hans,

It is best to keep this on the list as others may benefit from this too.

With the HL2 in a working state (which it sounds like you have to force a factory reset to do), follow Steve's comment. That is, run SparkSDR, connect to the radio, then on the top right click the "..." buttons. Confirm there is no fixed IP set (mine shows (0 0 0 0). Select "Favour DHCP".

Plug into your router and report back the state of the IP led.

73 Matthew M5EVT.

On Sunday, 7 March 2021 at 13:26:40 UTC Matthew wrote:

Hi Matthew,

Thanks for your answer and help with my problem. I have tried both, connected to the router and direct to the PC. In SparkSDR I have uploaded the hl2b5up_main.rbf (354.109) answered by SparkSDR by file uploaded successfully. Unfortunately this procedure did not solve the problem. After executing a forced firmware startup the software finds 169.254.19.221 (apipa) and works as expected.

73, Hans

[Matthew]

Glad to hear you got it working.

73 Matthew M5EVT.

On Sunday, 7 March 2021 at 14:42:00 UTC Matthew wrote:

Hi Matthew,

I am very pleased to report to you that finally this did the trick. I have followed your instructions and guidelines earlier given by Steve:  Run SparkSDR, connect to the radio, go to radiosettings button ( . . .), Make sure there is 'No Fixed IP' (0.0.0.0), Check 'Favor DHCP'. For one reason or the other I overlooked the 'Favor DHCP' setting. I herewith want to thank you Matthew, Steve and all other groupmembers of this HL2 amateur community who helped and supported me in finding a solution for my HL2 connect problem. Finally I would like to express special thanks to my friend Onno, HB9HJA with whom I have spent several hours by telephone to find a solution for my problem.
73,
Hans, PA0HRP

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Hans,

I am glad your HL2 is working again, Thanks for the help Matthew. We really need to understand how the HL2 is entering this bad state for some. Can you confirm that the problem was that "Favor DHCP' was not checked? Can you confirm that the only software you were using at the time the problem started was Thetis, or did you experiment with any other software? It must be either software unintentionally changing this setting, or the eeprom is flipping a bit. I doubt the bit flipping as then we'd see issues with bias values and other settings randomly change. I will look into making the setting for this more robust in the next gateware update, but would like to identify the root cause.

73,

Steve

kf7o

[Roger David Powers]

I also think it is the software itself or some side effect of another user action that is setting the flag.  

Here's what I see on my HL2 without using any settings that would change the default state as far as I know.

As you see all three flags are False.

$ python3

Python 3.7.3 (default, Jul 25 2020, 13:03:44) 

[GCC 8.3.0] on linux

Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

>>> import hermeslite

>>> import ipywidgets as widgets

>>> hl = hermeslite.discover_first()

Discover response from 192.168.1.16:1025

>>> r = hl.response()

>>> r

Response(type=2,

  mac='00:1c:c0:a2:13:dd',

  gateware='72.8',

  radio_id=6,

  use_eeprom_ip=False,

  use_eeprom_mac=False,

  favor_dhcp=False,

  eeprom_ip='0:0:0:0',

  eeprom_mac='00:1c:c0:a2:00:00',

  receivers=4,

  board_id=5,

  wideband_type=1,

  response_data=0,

  ext_cw_key=False,

  ptt_resp=False,

  pa_exttr=False,

  pa_inttr=False,

  tx_on=False,

  cw_on=False,

  adc_clip_cnt=3,

  temperature=27.75927734375,

  fwd_pwr=2,

  rev_pwr=2,

  bias=0.0,

  txfifo_recovery=True,

  txfifo_msbs=0,

  rem=b'\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00')

Regards,

RDP

[Steve Haynal]

Hi RDP,

Yes, that looks like what is expected. I'm very interested if you or someone else can make these settings change by indirectly changing something in some software.

73,

Steve

kf7o

[Steve Haynal]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Steve Haynal <st...@softerhardware.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 11, 2021 at 8:22 PM
Subject: Re: Powerup Problems
To: H. Peltzer <h.pe...@planet.nl>

Hi Hans,

I am posting this back to the list as I am not a PowerSDR/Thetis/PureSignal user. There is very little which happens in the HL2 regarding PureSignal, so I suspect software configuration. I think the magic number for PureSignal feedback on the HL2 is 0.233 which must be set unless you are using Reid's version of PowerSDR or Thetis. The jumpy SSB probably indicates that network traffic is not arriving at your HL2 in time. The test I recommend here is to key your HL2 via the CW jack. If you see a clean signal with that, then it is a software issue. Software just sends IQ data and it is not handled differently in the HL2. Finally,  check your filter settings. These can be found in the video linked to on the software wiki page:

https://github.com/softerhardware/Hermes-Lite2/wiki/Software

73,

Steve

kf7o

On Mon, Mar 8, 2021 at 2:53 PM H. Peltzer <h.pe...@planet.nl> wrote:

Hi Steve,
In SparkSDR I loaded hl2b5up_main.rbf. First I overlooked if 'Favour DHCP' was checked. The software I used when the problem started was Thetis or could also have been SparkSDR. I am sorry to report you HL2 still has remaining problems. Although HL2 now starts up without the hard firmware reset, more serious problems still excists. I will try to give a short description of what I found. HL2 starts up as usual. When I load the 'HL2 Test and Setup Utility' HL2 connects with IP 169.254.19.221. When I do a bias test current climbs up to 200mA. Thetis connects IP 169.254.19.221, and starts up as normal. Receive mode at first looks OK. In ssb transmit the signal often uncontrolled jumps up and down and during this state modulation is reported as distorted. Tuning signal looks steady. Pure signal, what worked great before, now is very unstable and remains in a state of correcting and trying to find a good setting but without any success. During ssb transmission signal randomly becomes distorted and very wide, it looks like transmission filter is not working properly. This is what I've found up to now.
73, Hans

Op 08.mrt..2021 om 05:59 schreef Steve Haynal:

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[Steve Haynal]

Hi Hans,

The hl2b5up_main.rbf is correct. The gateware has very little to do with PureSignal and that portion hasn't changed in a very long time. I suspect your PureSignal issues are software related.

73,

Steve

kf7o

On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 2:11 AM H. Peltzer <h.pe...@planet.nl> wrote:

Hi Steve,
It still is not possible Pure Signal getting to work. I recovered from the startup problem by reloading hl2b5up_main.rbf in SparkSDR. Could it be I have loaded a wrong version rbf file? Please advise.
73, Hans

Op 08.mrt..2021 om 05:59 schreef Steve Haynal:

Hi Hans,

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[Joe LB1HI]

Hi Steve,

why on video the low pass filter settings are given in J16 Receive Pins?

73, Joe

     Finally,  check your filter settings. These can be found in the video linked to on the software wiki page:

     https://github.com/softerhardware/Hermes-Lite2/wiki/Software

73,

Steve

kf7o

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Joe,

I'm not sure I understand your question. If it is why are the filter settings only on video, then it is because no one has added them to the wiki yet as a document.

73,

Steve

kf7o

[Reid Campbell]

HI Steve, Joe,

I think Joe is getting at the fact that the Tx boxes are not ticked and only the Rx ones. This means that the LPFs will be taken out of circuit when you transmit. In the PowerSDR and Thetis releases, pressing the N2ADR button will tick all the boxes required to ensure the LFPs are correct for Tx.

Cheers

Reid
Gi8TME/Mi0BOT 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/43dd3358-345d-4a86-afc3-5094ce30a758n%40googlegroups.com.

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi Steve,

Yes, I agree that a document at wiki would be useful.

It is worth agreeing on the recommended settings in advance. Before it gets published.

To clarify in advance whether the selection of filters in the RX column is appropriate.

In the meantime, from Reid's post it appears that these settings do not affect the status of filters during TX.
I just checked it today. And I confirm Reid's observations.

Thank you for your commitment to the project. I wish you continued success and good luck in further development activities.

73, Joe