Need help troubleshooting misbehaving DL2

[chetstone]

My DL2 recently started crashing and rebooting often. I've had it for 5-6 years and have installed custom software on it. As part of troubleshooting, I have disabled my customizations by deleting /mnt/nand/dl2/sbin/dl2postinit.sh.

I set up a ping from another machine and the DL2 comes up and stays online for anywhere between 30 seconds to 10 minutes, then apparently reboots and goes offline for a minute, then comes back up. While online, the red led "memory gauge" is lit and the top led is blinking, then the leds go out. This repeats for a while but finally the DL2 goes offline and stays offline (at this point the blinking leds stay on). 

I'd like to find out as much as I can about what the problem is before deciding to replace the unit. 

The steps I've taken so far are:

1. Push the front panel reset button for >5 and < 10 seconds to reset the memory. This is supposed to clear the packet memory. I had a similar problem a couple of months ago and clearing the memory seemed to fix it. (although it didn't really clear the memory --- only about half of it and many very old files are still there). Trying this again now has had no effect.

2. Push the front panel reset button for > 10 seconds. This is supposed to perform a factory reset, but it doesn't seem to do anything as I can still access the unit at the same IP and use my same root password to log in.

3. Logging in with ssh and reboot to make sure a clean reboot happens.

I have a couple of guesses about what happened.

1. Damage from a power surge --- we had several power outages last week. But this doesn't explain the similar episode 2 months ago when there were no outages and it appears to have recovered.

2. I may have worn out the flash memory. I was imprudently writing log files to it for a while. I'm not longer doing it but I might have exceeded the number of write cycles supported by the memory. There are a few JFFS related warnings in /var/logs/messages when the device boots up. (See the log here).

I'm using firmware version 1.4.4 (201008190854). If I have to replace the unit, I'm hoping I can find one with 1.4 firmware because my custom software is written in ruby and I understand that 2.0 doesn't support ruby. 

Sorry if this is a duplicate posting. I thought I posted this a few hours ago but it hasn't shown up. 

[Bruce Arlidge]

I have just bought a new DL2 from a seller on ebay, it came with firmware version 1.4 on it.  I am having trouble upgrading it and don't know why, I'm following the instructions for prepping the SD card and it copies the logs over but doesnt do the update.  He has 2 more left which I would assume will be from the same batch therefore same firmware.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Resol-Datalogger-DL2-solar/192215992132?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

If you can give me any pointers regarding the firmware I would be very grateful.

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[chetstone]

After buying a new DL2 which gave me more resources for troubleshooting, I discovered the DL2 itself was not defective. The problem was an almost-broken power supply wire, damaged by over-tightening the strain relief!